Code: Betrayal
by AwesomeFanFictionAuthor
Summary: I am Morgan Xanthos, and I revived my father Xana. I took back my home. I succeeded. Of course, that came with it's own problems. Funny, isn't it? These are my memories. This is my story.
1. A New Objective

Have you ever heard of the butterfly effect? The flap of a butterfly wing can cause a monsoon. Not directly, of course, but through a series of chain reactions. Although...the life or death of Xana is a little less arbitrary than the flap of a butterfly wing. In a way, this situation is also Schrodinger's Cat. When you read the first part of Code Revenge, the part where the story splits in two, it can be said that the program to reconstruct Xana both does and doesn't work.

What I'm trying to get at is, this is a completely different kind of story than the one you're used to. The fact that Xana recovered instead of staying dead...set off a chain of events that made me a completely different person than the Morgan Xanthos you see in the Code Revenge branch of the timeline.

As the title suggests, this diverging timeline is focused on betrayal. It is the story of my life. My entire life, from the day I revived Xana to the day I was destroyed and appeared here, in this world, able to tell my story to you and to heal from the damages I still have.

For you this is an entertaining story. Well...I hope it is. The statistics seem to suggest you guys like it. For me, this story is therapeutic. I'm trying to remember my life. Some...a lot...of memories were lost or made fuzzy in translation from that world to this one. Because this story serves mostly to help me recall my life, I cannot promise this will go entirely in...chronological order. Of course, I will try to make things as chronological and smooth as possible, but if I remember something and want to jump backwards, I will. There are large parts of my life I don't remember, or only remember very vaguely. So, I may work together with Affa to make up probable situations, just to make the story flow better. That's what we did for the first part of this story, after all.

I can't help but notice this writing convention is pretty much the same as Taelia's. I'm more similar to her than I originally thought. I'll let you know why that is when it comes up in the story...if you haven't already guessed. This incarnation of the story was a lot more in your face about it than the last one...

This entire story will be in my point of view, because this is my life. Enjoy.

* * *

I stood in the chamber where Xana's remains hung in suspension. It looked like a big orb of light inside a crater. It pulsed red, once, twice, three times, then it slowly began to contract. I watched in wonder. I couldn't help but feel excited. It was working! The pieces were finding each other and reconstructing. I would have a father again. With that, everything else would fall into place.

Over the course of about ten minutes, the light contracted and formed into a tall human form with a black lab coat that liked to flare out behind him like a cape. He also had a dark blue turtleneck and black pants and shoes. He sure did like black and dark colors. What is that quote from The Lego Movie "I only work in black...and really dark gray." That was Xana. Although he also used other dark, saturated colors. He definitely had an aesthetic.

I smiled and felt something like a warmth in my chest as he opened his eyes. I did it. I got back my home, and I got back my father. The Lyoko Warriors couldn't take everything away. I would come back stronger from anything they threw at me.

"Father! You're back!" I wanted to run up and hug him...but I knew those signs of affection were disgusting and not appreciated. I refrained. He didn't respond right away, likely he was booting up again, getting acclimated to the surroundings. He surveyed his domain. By the way, this place was not actually called NegaCarthage. That was a name Affa came up with years ago based on a signature of someone on an old forum saying they lived in the NegaWorld. By the time I came around, Code Revenge was already a long established story. We didn't want to contradict anything. I actually called it home or base or home base. It didn't really have a proper name.

"Of course I am. I never had any doubt. Well done." His voice was deep and rich and dark and slightly intimidating at all times. It had only been two weeks, but I had almost forgot the kind of effect his voice had. I immediately felt excess energy I had from the excitement start to die down, and my racing thoughts began to quiet down. I stood up straighter. His voice had this effect where it would not just be something you heard from outside, but something that would take residence inside your mind and consume everything else so that it commanded your absolute attention.

And he was proud of me. He was proud of me for bringing him back! I was so pleased.

He started to walk, and gestured for me to follow him. I followed at a respectable distance. Well...walk wasn't exactly the right term. It was half walking, half floating, like when you're at the airport on those moving walkways. It's sort of like that. Why was he being so silent? There was so much I wanted to tell him, about how I was progressing. But he hadn't asked me, and if he hadn't asked me, it meant he didn't want to hear it.

We made our way to the Tower Room with the Digital Sea lake at the entrance of the Replika.

"Make the staircase." He told me, his back still to me. Couldn't he make it? I didn't question it, though. I went to the map editor in my mind and scrolled to this Replika, then I switched on the staircase from here to the control room. As soon as I did, blue floating platforms appeared from where we were standing up into the far wall. I went ahead and also opened the wall to reveal the next room. The control room. It was a shame I hadn't been able to sit in his chair more. When I did I felt so powerful, it felt so right. I had all of his resources at my command. It was a great feeling. Now it would be disrespectful to do so.

He sat down on the chair, or throne, whatever you want to call it. He probably would have called it a throne, the melodramatic prick. Although at the time, I wan't much better. He rest his hand on one of the screen panels and the panel scanned his hand. I looked over his shoulder at the readout. He was logging in to the Replika. Oh, that was why he couldn't make the stairs on his own. He was more or less the same program, but because I had to reprogram some of Xana to revive him, he was slightly different. The Replika didn't recognize him. He would have to do the same thing in Sector 5 so that he could access Lyoko's control panel.

I stood quietly behind him. He didn't say anything to me for a while. It seemed he was just checking on the status of everything in his domain. I hoped he would be pleased with what I had done.

"The monsters are still here, and this Replika's integrity is in tact. Excellent." I smiled at the praise. "And how are our friends, the Lyoko Warriors?"

"Alive but scared. I have some rather elaborate plans for making each and every single one of them pay, if you are interested. I've also killed the strongest of them." I explained. Xana raised an eyebrow.

"And who is that?"

"Taelia."

Father suddenly froze. His lips twitched into a scowl. That was terrifying. I froze too.

"I would like a better idea of what you've been up to. I am going to download your recent memories." I stood in place and could actually see my memories being downloaded. A bar appeared on one of the screens. When it was filled, Xana had access to all of my memories from the time he was destroyed up until now. It only took him a second to take in and analyze all of the information that took years to write down.

He twitched. He was...angry. He rarely got emotional at all, but when he did, it was almost always anger. I felt tiny. I felt incredibly small, like a young child again. What had I done to displease him? I did...I did everything right. I did everything right! Was it because I didn't kill them? I wanted to do it in style! That's what he would have wanted...wasn't it? Why was he angry at me?

I looked down. I didn't want to risk angering him further. Something was wrong...something about me was wrong. I could feel a dark aura coming from him and pushing into me, exerting pressure on me. It was the same thing he did to his enemies, and the same thing I tried to do to my enemies. Why me, though? What did I do?

I was very uncomfortable and honestly...scared. I know that's hard to believe, but I was. A villain is a villain for a reason.

More than anything, I wanted him to break the silence. I didn't dare to break it...the pressure he exerted on me was building and building...

And, as suddenly as it had come, it was gone. I felt a hand on my chin and flinched a little. Father kept his hold steady and lifted my chin so that I looked up directly into his eyes. All of his former animosity was gone. It was almost comforting.

"Go to Earth and live at Kadic as a student. Do not interfere with any of my activity. Observe and wait for further orders." His words were not only outside, but inside. His words echoed inside me. He was editing my code. This was my new objective.

"Yes, father." I took a deep bow, like I used to do during training, and headed back to Kadic.


	2. Kadic Life

**By the way, if you haven't read up to chapter 23 of Code: Revenge, you should go do that. That's the first part of this story.**

* * *

I brought Kanky back with me to Kadic. Yes, that was his actual name, and no, I did not know the word kinky at the time I named him. And yes, Odd did make that joke when he found out the Kankrelat's name. I didn't know how long it would be until I would be allowed back on Lyoko. Xana was pretty mad, at the time. So, I materialized Kanky. That way he couldn't be deleted or recalled easily. There was no telling what Xana would do in this situation.

At the time, I didn't know what exactly got him so suddenly angry. It doesn't come up at any point in the story. I never figured it out while I was alive. Now, in retrospect, I think I know why. Taelia was the only human Xana liked. Back in the days when Xana was still evolving autonomy, Taelia talked to him. She didn't treat him like a tool, or as beneath her. Xana also never tried to kill Taelia, even when she got in the way of his plans to take out Franz and Aelita. He easily could have killed her there, but he gave her a warning and devirtualized her. When she visited Kadic, Xana scared her with the samurai suit, but wasn't really trying to kill her. It always seemed more like he was trying to push her away. He didn't want her dead. And so when I came to him with the news that I had killed her and only her, he got mad.

Well, that's what I think happened.

And so I began my life at Kadic Academy. I...actually don't remember all that much from this time period. I apologize. I'll come back to this time period later if I remember any important specific instances. I might even make a chapter of some normal day to day moments if I remember them clearly. For now, I'll go over what I do remember.

The next morning all of the teachers wondered where the Lyoko Warriors were. I suggested they were sick. The teachers didn't care much, anyways. At that point there was only about a week left of school. However, when another day went by and nobody could find them or reach them, people started to ask questions. More specifically, they started to ask _me_ questions.

"Now don't you lie to me, miss Xanthos." Jim said. We were in Principal Delmas's office. His face was too close to mine, and his face was sweaty. His face was often sweaty. "We both know that you know where all your little friends are."

"I'm telling you, sir. I don't" I replied, looking at him calmly.

"You aren't tricking me. Back in the CIA they called me the lie sniffer, do you know why, Xanthos?!"

"Because you could sniff out lies?" I asked. I literally could not have been more bored.

"Yes, because-"

And then the door bust open and a creature I could only describe as a rubbery wolf with no apparent eyes or ears walked in. It sniffed the air, growled with that electronic quality Xana loved so much, and walked out.

"And that's my cue to exit." I said, and simply got up and walked out.

Turns out Xana had dozens of these creatures patrolling all over Paris. They were based on tracking dogs, Trakkers, people might have called them. They were sent to go find the Lyoko Warriors and terrorize people. Xana liked my idea of making a scene in order to make them launch a return to the past. That idea would only work so many times, though. The Lyoko Warriors came out of hiding alright, but they were more cautious than ever.

They came back to Kadic during the week and a half left of school. What kind of students would miss finals, after all? I aced my finals, of course. I cheated, if photographic and perfect audio memory of the notes counts as cheating. Does that count as cheating?

One day, I was in my room, when Ulrich opened the door. He closed it and pointed the EMP gun at my head.

"You brought him BACK?!" He was really upset about Xana being back. It was understandable. They worked so hard and sacrificed Franz Hopper in order to take him out. Now Taelia was dead and Xana was back. This really was a losing situation for them. And it was my fault, of course. They really and truly hated me. Although, we really didn't end up interacting all that much after Xana was revived.

Without turning around, I reached behind me and extended my electro-magnetic field to the gun. This took a second. If he hadn't been hesitating, he could have gotten me. If he distracted me, he could have gotten me. However, I was faster on the draw. Ulrich wasn't cut out to be a murderer. None of them were. The gun flew from his hand to mine. I then took the barrel of the gun in my hand, heated my hand up, and twisted the barrel and bent it upward. Then I dropped the gun to the ground. It was completely ruined.

"I have nothing to do with this right now. Xana will destroy you. Fight all you like but that will be the final outcome. Oh, and by the way, you might want to kill off the Sissi clone soon, because-" I pointed down the hall. There was a scream, right on cue. Ulrich looked in that direction.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me..." He mumbled. "We're not finished here!" He told me, then he ran after Sissi. We were done here, though. When we returned to the past it was right when Ulrich pointed the gun at me. I reacted quicker again and destroyed it. That was the end of that gun. I didn't do that before because honestly it was part of the game. Now I wasn't even a part of the game...so what was the point of creating dramatic tension if you weren't even part of the story?

A day or so later, they staged Sissi's death. They got Jeremie to make her die in class so that they could get all As on their finals. I was taking my own finals with Yumi and William at the time. I wasn't watching their classroom at the time, so I didn't see it happen. However, they said she just suddenly fell and died.

They had a memorial for her at the end of the year. Principal Delmas was a mess, so was Jim. People brought flowers and candles...it was lovely, really. I don't remember much about it. Herb and Nicholas were the most upset, I think. They offered counseling. The atmosphere of the Academy was very different for a while. I think Herb and Nicholas tried to do a seance for Sissi in the boiler room.

And then it was Summer. I stayed at Kadic and took classes in in order to have a place to stay. Xana still hadn't contacted me. He continued to attack Earth, but he didn't contact me at all. I was patient, though. I would wait for him. I had to. Xana kept attacking, though, and so the Lyoko Warriors had to stay in the area. They all said they were staying at each others houses. Yumi stayed at her house while the rest lived in the Factory. Stacey went back to work at McDonalds to make sure they could all eat. They all had some character development, especially in terms of their relationships with each other, romantic and otherwise. Do you really think I paid attention to that?

And then the next school year came. The war wore on. Xana became more and more elaborate with his attacks and the Lyoko Warriors became more and more efficient in stopping them. They didn't manage to wipe him out, again. He didn't manage to wipe him out either. I made more actual progress in two weeks than he did in months. Was he weak, or was something else stopping him? No, I know he wasn't weak. I still don't know why he never managed to win against those kids. By all logic he should have done it before I was even created. Maybe, just like with Taelia, he didn't actually want to kill them? I don't know. I never figured that one out, and frankly, I don't care.

I became impatient and bored. As the months wore on, Xana still did not contact me. I wanted to contact him but I couldn't. He had given me a direct order not to interfere. And so I couldn't interfere, end of story. I took on hobbies. I came across a song Xana made to stop people's hearts. The fact that music could do that fascinated me. I downloaded some music creation software and began to fiddle with it. I created songs, but I can't remember what any of them sound like. I would recreate them if I did. I programmed some things...I programmed a game that was basically a really low resolution Lyoko simulator. It gained some notoriety online. I was in a play for the school. I was in Jim's martial arts class for a little bit, until I found out that Ulrich and Yumi were the only ones who ever went. The fights got way too personal, and Jim had to pull us apart. William was not possessed again, and I soon gave up on getting back together with him. He wasn't interested. He associated too many bad things with me, and didn't want to get to know me. I couldn't bring myself to force the issue.

The Lyoko Warriors came to see me as less of a threat and more of just...a person in the background. That's what I was, after all. Just a background figure in this part of the story. My part of the story started up again about six months later, in the Winter.

I sat in my room, putting together a new song and absentmindedly scratching Kanky's shell. He made little whirring noises now that he was an actual robot. He lived in my drawer, instead of the light socket. I didn't own any clothing, anyways, so why not? If I remember correctly, I was putting in the baseline. Suddenly the screen cut out and showed the eye of Xana. My eyes widened. After 9 months of hearing absolutely nothing from my father, he was finally going to talk to me!

"Morgan. I have an important mission for you. Come see me at once." He said. His voice resonated within me. I smiled. I immediately got up and made my way back home. I could finally take center stage. I could finally be of some use.


	3. First Encounter

And so for the first time in a long time I headed into the network and went home. I got on the network and to Lyoko the same way the Lyoko Warriors do, by the way. The only difference is that first they need to be converted into a digital format. Spectres are already in a digital format, so I just skip the virtualization step and go right into the wires and into the Supercomputer.

I walked up to Xana's control room. He was busy typing away, as usual.

"Father, I'm here." I said. He turned around. He didn't look happy to see me, or angry or upset...he looked neutral. He was always more emotionally neutral than I was. I tried to be more like him but sometimes I just couldn't. I didn't know why. Before even saying hello, he gave me a panel with information on it.

"Your job is assassination. This woman goes by the code name Feather. She was a test subject for the super soldier division of Project Carthage, but she escaped. She has enhanced physical capabilities. She has angered me. You'll find all the information I could find on her on that file. Take as long as you want, as painful as you like, but I want her dead."

"With pleasure." I said. "By the way, how goes your-"

"Morgan, you are dismissed." Xana said simply, and turned back to his work. He was right. He had his things to do and now I had mine. I went back to my room at Kadic and took a look at the file. Apparently Feather lived in a cabin in the woods in the northwestern United States. This probably wouldn't take too long. There was no need to withdraw from Kadic. I would just take a vacation. I didn't even bother to bring my laptop, or Kanky. I did make sure all of my things were locked up and hidden away. The last thing I wanted was for somebody to go through my things.

I went through the network and wound up in the approximate area Feather was supposed to be. This turned out to be Oregon, which ironically was the place my papers said I was from. Home sweet home, I suppose. There certainly was a lot of forest. I didn't have the time or energy to comb through it all. There was a note on Feather's record that said she frequented a bar called Jimmy's. I could use that to find her.

"Welcome to Jimmy's! What can I get for ya?" There was a middle aged man with a scraggly yet short beard at the tap. He wasn't a thin man. There were people watching American Football on TV, and eating and drinking, and drinking...

"I'm looking for Feather." I said. A woman who was chugging a cheap beer slammed it down.

"Who's asking?" She grumbled. I looked over at her. Golden hair and golden eyes. The picture in her file matched the image I was seeing. This was my target.

"Like I just said, I am." I said simply. She tilted her head back in exasperation, and then turned her head and glared at me. Then she looked...surprised? And she relaxed.

"Oh, it's you. I was wondering when you'd get back, worried me half to death-" Then Feather squinted. "Wait...nevermind. Thought you were someone else. So, what do you want, little miss jacket." Feather had an angry Irish accent and was very drunk...

"Miss...I wouldn't bother her until she sobers up." The bartender said. The bartender must have been Jimmy?

"Mister, I know what I can handle." I replied, and sat right on down next to her. The stools were interesting. They were your basic wooden circle on legs bar stool, but they also had this little semi-circle bar attached to the seat with columns.

It's funny the details you remember and the details you don't...I don't remember what Feather's face looked like. Not exactly. Did she have scars? I'm not sure. She probably did, and there were probably scars on her face. Scars from the experiments, scars from fights, scars that I gave her. Those were the most interesting. I could forget something as important as her face, but I remembered the bar chair.

"Don't fight in the bar." Jimmy looked between Feather and I. "You remember what happened last time." He addressed Feather. Feather gave a toothy grin, leaned on her fist with her elbow on the table, and looked at him...seductively.

"Oh, please...I would never hurt the place that keeps me loaded." She tilted her head back to look at me. "Now, what do you want?" Feather asked.

"I want to fight." Jimmy shot me a look. I turned to him and smiled innocently. "Not here." I turned back to Feather. "I heard you were good in a fight. I've traveled a considerable distance to find out _how_ good."

"Oh? How far?" She asked, and sipped on her beer.

"That's not really any of your business." I replied. Feather turned her seat toward me.

"Come on, I at least deserve to know something about the ass I'm kicking." Feather said. She was certainly confident. I decided to oblige.

"I'm from France." I said simply. By this point Jimmy and any other customers that had been watching us stopped paying attention and moved on to their own thing.

"France, huh?" Feather took another swig and seemed to consider it. "You came all the way from France just to see how tough I am in a fight? Nah, nah, I call bullshit. Who sent you?" I smirked and whispered in her ear.

"Xana."

She froze. I sat back and smiled at her. I willed my pupils to become the eye of Xana so that she would know I was serious. Then, with the furiosity and strength of a wild animal, Feather lunged at me. I leaped back enough that she did not hit me. A bunch of bar customers turned and held her back. She fought against them, trying to come at me again, but she wasn't strong enough to through off the several large men holding her.

"I think it's best you leave." Jimmy glared at me. I shrugged, and went up to Feather's face.

"See you soon." I winked, and walked out of the bar.

Nobody knew how to make a scene better than Morgan Xanthos.


	4. A Hot Mess

I hid in the shadows near the entrance of Jimmy's and waited for Feather to leave. I waited a really long time...all night and into the next morning. Most everyone left, but not Feather. Finally, at about 5 am she stumbled out of the bar. Heavy drinker, were we? I could hear her grumbling to herself.

"Fuckin...tryin to take my license. Police can't keep me down, can't catch me, I'm the goddamn gingerbread man- woman. Wooooman, I miss that woooooman." She started to sing a little tune. "You left and I missssss youuu why did you leeeaaaavvveee." She went really high on that word. "Yer prob'bly dead er some shit." And then she stopped saying actual words and just sort of grumbled.

She got into the front of an old, beaten up truck. I followed her in Spectre form. I hid myself within the nooks and crannies of the truck. It sputtered to life. The truck jerked, and then jerked again.

"Come on, you glorious bucket of bolts." Feather grumbled. "Get your ass in gear." Feather jerked key violently and for some reason that worked. We were off to wherever it was Feather spent her time when she wasn't drinking, which could be a number of places. I was hoping it would be her home.

She drove surprisingly well for someone who had stayed at a bar all night. She barely swerved. It was actually fairly impressive. She yelled at the traffic a lot, and slurred her words, and sang a little tune I didn't recognize. We drove for miles. We were headed East, out of the Portland area, and towards the forest. Of course she had to live in the middle of nowhere. She probably lived in a log cabin with no running electricity, too.

I'm sure I've explained before, somewhere, that I'm not fond of the woods. I don't have a network to connect to, so things like gps and internet go offline. There's no electricity in the woods, save for lightning, which I had to go out and find. Nature, in general, was always weird and foreign to me. Give me civilization, give me the city. Once Xana took over everything, I would spend some time in some big city and rule by night or do some parkour or...something. Well, that would be then, this was now.

Feather parked the truck in a large beat up shed just off the road. I waited until she was a reasonable distance away, and then followed her. I kept to the shadows and didn't make a noise. Her file said that her senses were stronger than that of a human. We walked for some time. Then, to my surprise, she spoke.

"Are you gonna ambush me any time soon? We've been walking for a while." She swung around to my general direction.

How did she know I was there? I conceded, and came out of the shadows, forming back into my human shape.

"And yer mocking me? Yeah, you're from Xana, alright." Feather laughed.

"How did you know I was there?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Your smell." She tapped her nose. "At first I thought the truck was breaking down for good, but as soon as I went into the forest and kept smelling the smoke, I knew it had to be my little assassin."

Was that a jab at my size? Feather was at least six inches taller than me. She didn't know I was following her until the woods, so she actually meant to go to these woods, but then she just walked me in circles, waiting for me to attack?

"Well, if that's the case, let's just forget any pretense, and fight here." I said, falling into a fighting stance.

"I was thinking the same thing." Feather smirked. She was obviously also itching for a fight as well.

Before I even had the chance to move, Feather was right in front of me. She delivered punch after punch. On instinct, I became intangible. My particles scattered again and again, but once she stopped, I came back together. Honestly, I was surprised. I charged up some electricity, held up my hand, and released it at her. She flew backwards and crashed headfirst against a tree. I frowned slightly and blinked. I was hoping for a little more of a fight. I didn't think Xana would be pleased if I used a spectre top power her up to my level.

"Wait, one second..." Feather said, raising her hand. "This ain't a fair fight. I know you want to prove your strength. I can see it in your eyes...I have something that can fix this anatomy issue." She got up to her feet far too quick for someone who had just gotten their head bashed into a tree. Perhaps her strength was in her durability. I was willing to hear her out.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Back...in my cabin. I have these gloves...they can touch you like normal..." Feather said. Gloves that could touch me like normal? I didn't pretend to know what she was talking about, exactly. However, I wanted to see where she lived, anyways.

"Alright. Lead the way." I said, standing back. I knew Feather could use this opportunity to attack while my guard was down. So...my guard wasn't down, but she didn't attack. She got up and rubbed her head.

"You're strong." She said.

"I know."

She started walking in the opposite direction from where she'd been headed before. So she was leading me away from her home. I followed closely behind her. She took me through some thick woods, overturned trees, cliffs, all sorts of obstacles. It was obvious people weren't supposed to be able to make it here. Feather wanted to be alone.

After about a 20 minute walk, we made it to a clearing with tree stumps scattered around and a single story log cabin in the middle. A few trees remained unchopped around the cabin, to give it some shade.

"Like it? I built it myself." Feather said, still a little slurred. I simply shrugged in response. "Eh, you just have no taste." She seemed very casual around someone who wanted to assassinate her. Where was the fear? I guessed it was part personality, part that she could survive more than most, and part that she was still a little drunk that made her act this way.

She opened the front door. It wasn't locked. It didn't appear to have a lock. I guessed she could afford to be that confident.

I walked in. It was nice, it was homey...That's a lie. It was a mess. There were strips of meat hanging from the ceiling and empty bottles of alcohol scattered everywhere. There was a wall with various guns and swords and there was a crossbow. There were probably more than that, but they were hard to see since most of the weapons were in a pile. There were a lot of windows, but they were all closed, so the cabin was dark, and it was dirty.

Why did Xana want this woman killed? It seemed she was going to die soon anyways if she kept going like this. Besides, she didn't seem to pose much of a threat. She wasn't very public, so she couldn't be used as an example. Was it just spite? By the way, I never got an answer to this question. To this day, I still have no idea why Xana specifically sent me to kill Feather in the first place.

"Make yourself at home, I gotta find em. Probably downstairs." Feather said, then went down a staircase and left me alone in her living room. There was still no network here, no wifi, but there was a TV, a pretty big one. I looked around. There were no cameras for me to hijack in order to spy on her. That was unfortunate. If I wanted to know what was going on here, I would have to come here myself.

I perched on top of one of the beat up couches and waited. I could hear Feather rustling through some metal things downstairs. What were gloves doing in piles of metal? I picked up the remote and flipped on the TV. It was mostly static...did she break the TV?

I heard a crash downstairs.

"FOUND EM!" Feather called from the basement. She ran back up the stairs. I turned off the TV and looked at her. She had these black gloves with green shimmering threads throughout it. She walked over to me and poked my shoulder. To my amazement, it moved back slightly, like she was actually touching me. "Now, do your intangible thing?"

"Ok..." I was curious so I did. I spread my particles out far enough that if she tried to touch me, it would go through. She poked me, my shoulder moved back.

"See, now I can touch you. Now we can have an actual fight. Come on, I cleared some space downstairs. She took my wrist and pulled me. My eyes widened. She was actually pulling me and I couldn't pull away. She actually had a grasp on me! What? How?

She pulled me downstairs, and I prepared myself for a fight.


	5. Taken Down a Notch

The basement was just about the polar opposite of the first floor. It was significantly cleaner down here, for starters. There were some piles of various gadgets, but none of them were broken. There were all sorts of things made of metal and wires. A lot of them had the same sort of aesthetic as the gloves Feather wore. They were probably made by the same person...but something told me it wasn't Feather. She seemed too disorganized to make all of these.

The floor was black and white checkered marble. There were also auto parts and a motorcycle down here, and a large flat screen on the wall. A larger one than anyone needed. There was a large cleared out space in the middle of the room. Feather took her place on one side. he tilted her head and cracked her neck on both sides.

"Well, come on. I don't have all day. But keep it small, ok? Don't want to ruin any of this stuff." Feather gestured for me to come on.

"If you didn't want me to use any of this, why did you bring me here?" I asked. Feather shrugged.

"Just wanted you to see it."

I raised an eyebrow as I stepped into the ring. Feather was...an interesting character. I didn't quite know what to make of her, to be quite honest. She seemed like a wildcard more than anything.

"What's wrong, afraid of a little hand to hand combat, uh...ya know, I don't think I ever caught your name." Feather slurred. She was beginning to speak clearer, though.

"Morgan Xanthos. Remember it." I crossed my arms. "And no, of course I'm not afraid."

"Then come at me. I'm giving you the first swing here." Feather gave me a crooked smile.

And so, I did. I didn't have as much training in unarmed combat. My expertise lay in my electrical powers and the ability to use a person's weapon against them. However, my skills would be more than enough to deal with some blonde drunkard. I could already imagine coming home to my father with her tortured corpse. He would be so proud!

Oh, who was I kidding?! He wasn't going to be proud of me then and he never would be. I didn't know that at the time of course, but all of this was just...useless. There was no point. Nothing I did would change what he was, and what I was to him. But...I'm getting a little ahead of myself. At the time, I sincerely believed that if I completed my objective with all that I had, Xana would be proud of me, and let me sit at his side as we went on to conquer the world.

I swung with my right fist. She dodged backward. I followed her and swung with my left. She ducked away and below. I went for the chest. She...grabbed my arm. One of her hands wrapped around my wrist and one was on my upper arm. What...was this? The technology worked...Well, I had seen that when Feather dragged me down the stairs, but still, seeing it in combat was something different. Alright, this was just like sparring with William on Lyoko. No big deal.

Feather pushed up on my upper arm, and I immediately bent over...against my own will. I didn't even mean to do it, it just happened. Then, Feather bent my arm so that my fist was pointing towards me. She locked my arm in that position with one hand and punched me in the gut several times with the other. It didn't hurt, because I couldn't feel pain, but it scrambled me a little. You know that thing that happens to spectres if they're hit, where they become gray and fuzzy for a moment before snapping back to original form? That happened. If she scrambled me too much, I could lose consciousness. I suppose if she scrambled me to the point that I couldn't put myself back together again, I would technically be dead. That is more or less what happened to Xana in the half of this story where he dies.

Eventually Feather took my arm in both hands and flipped me over her shoulder. It took me a few seconds to get myself back together. When I opened my eye, she was standing and looking down on me, a smirk on her face. This was all wrong. The roles should have been reversed. I was supposed to be looking down at her smugly.

Since she was so conveniently close to me, I tripped her, then got up quickly. I was able to grab her arm and slam her into the ground. She somehow managed to land on her feet and kick me square in the stomach. I scrambled, but she didn't give me time to reform. She kept punching me over and over, at speeds faster and with more power than a human would be able to. In the stomach, in the chest, in the head.

My consciousness turned off.

When it switched back on I was in...a bedroom? I was in a queen sized bed decorated in various shade of burgundy. The room itself had a fairly muted color scheme. The sandy curtains were shut. The lights were off, but sunlight came in from underneath the doorway. It was daytime. Was...was I dead? Was this some sort of afterlife? No, of course not. I had merely been knocked unconscious. That was a new sensation for me...Besides, according to every possible account of an afterlife, ever, you had to have a soul to experience it, and I didn't have anything like that. Assuming the soul even existed, I was an artificial intelligence, something programmed, manufactured to look and sound human. Whatever process it was that supposedly gave humans a soul, it surely was not used in my creation.

Well, if I wasn't in some sort of afterlife, then where was I? I gently got out of the bed and opened the curtains. The room instantly flooded with light. Outside there were trees, and mountains in the distance. I couldn't connect to the network. Was I still in Feather's cabin?

"Finally woke up. It's been a day, you know. I almost left you along in here to Jimmy's. But that would have been a pretty shitty idea, huh?"

I tensed up. It was Feather. I turned around. She was looking a lot more...coherent, than she had during the fight. She'd sobered up. That was it.

"How..."

"I knocked you out. The gloves worked like a charm. You're really rusty with your hand to hand skills, you know that? You rely on your powers too much."

I scowled, then pushed past her and went for the door. It was shameful to retreat like this, but I had to think about this. As I left I could hear her call after me.

"You're welcome back anytime Morgan. The door won't be locked. And tell Xana he can suck my dick!"


	6. Two Incidents Elaborated

I remember the least about my time at Kadic, so before I move on with what happened with Feather, I'd like to tell you about something that happened at Kadic.

It was nearing winter break. The Lyoko Warriors would either have to leave the Supercomputer unprotected, or live in the Factory for the next month. They stayed in the Factory during the summer...I can't imagine it was very comfortable. Plus, Xana was getting more powerful all the time. They were having a hard time coping with all of this stress.

And so, of course, the most obvious idea was to come to me.

I was sitting under the big oak tree in the courtyard. I took to doing that a lot when I was stuck at Kadic. I would just sit under a big tree and observe the school...the symphony of voices and machines and dramas and celebrations and stress and...all sorts of things. It was almost like music.

"Hey, Morgan." That high pitched, annoying voice...His voice was the kazoo of the orchestra.

"Hello, Odd." I replied, glancing up at him. "What do you want?"

"You really have to loosen up, ya know. All I did was say hi, and you assume I want something."

"Well, do you want something?" I asked.

"Well, yes..."

"I rest my case." I said, closing my eyes again.

"I was just wondering what your deal was?" Odd asked.

"My deal?"

"Well, yeah. It's been months, and you're just sitting there. We've been fighting Xana, but ever since he came back you jut stopped." Odd explained.

"And you're complaining about that?"

"No, just curious. You used to be so on top of us with this revenge stuff, but now you just sit around. What happened?"

"That is no business of yours." I replied. I got up and started to walk away. He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Is it a problem with Xana?"

"Don't touch me!" I shook his arm off my shoulder.

"Cause if it is, if he hurt you or something or he's just plain out left you...maybe you should fight against him. That way he'll know what he missed, what he messed with. You can get back at him for doing whatever he's doing to you now like you were gonna get back at us.

I gave him a funny look. Honestly, it was something I thought about before, actually. I was getting impatient and I thought about attacking Xana in order to make him appreciate me. But...I did not dare actually do that.

"Thanks, but no thanks. You deal with your business, and I'll deal with mine." I walked away.

Hm...That incident was a lot shorter than I thought it was. I can't very well publish a chapter less than 500 words. Sure, the chapters here are slightly shorter than Code Revenge, but 500 words is not enough. I could tell you about the time before Code Revenge, when I lived on Lyoko and trained and learned about the world. Or, I could talk about my past relationship with William, I bet there's someone out there who really wants to know how that was. But no, I was planning on putting all those details into a separate story later. I suppose I could go into more detail about "Sissi's" death.

It was a day or two after the incident where Ulrich tried to shoot me with the EMP gun and I made it completely unusable. This was also during finals week. It's amazing, looking back, how much actually happened in those two weeks between Xana's death and his return. It was...Wednesday, I think, the day of the science finals. Science just happened to be both Ulrich and Odd's worst subject. Mrs. Hertz did deal with some complex subjects, even if it looked like all she ever taught was y=mx+b...Well, complex for the average student, I should say. Anyways, instead of actually study, the two of them decided they would get out of science finals by staging Sissi's death.

Like I said before, I wasn't watching their classroom at the time. I had no reason to. I was on standby. I went into the room with Yumi, William, and the rest of the tenth grade class. The Lyoko Warriors gave up hiding pretty quickly once Xana came back and I was no longer an immediate threat to them. It was just like old times, plus one moody spectre, minus one annoying brat.

Our test was in one of the science labs. All of the equipment was put away and there was a large paper covering the periodic table of the elements. Tenth grade was the year we took Chemistry. Our teacher wasn't about to let us cheat off the chart. I saw the face of many a student darken when they saw that. It seemed not that many people at Kadic actually studied, but instead used outside sources to get their answers...myself included, but I was a special case. My mind recalled everything exactly as it was, with no need to try to memorize. If I needed any information, I did some internet research. It probably would have been considered cheating, but it was just how my mind worked. I didn't actually keep that much information stored locally, enough to function well outside of network range, but not much more than that. The only reason it looked like I knew so many more facts than everyone else was because I could get the information from outside sources without any outside devices. My actual genius comes from planning and problem solving.

So we were taking the chemistry exam, and I was breezing through it, when suddenly we hear sirens. Everyone looked up from the test and looked out the window to see what it was. The teacher told everyone to calm down and sit and take the test, time was running out. Everyone reluctantly went back to their seats and resumed the communal panic attack that was the Chemistry exam.

I looked through a camera to find out what was happening. Sissi was in a stretcher, going into an ambulance. Of course...that was just a spectre, so Jeremie had to be somehow monitoring and controlling its conditions in order to create a convincing medical incident. Were they taking my advice and getting rid of her, since Xana just kept taking control of her to cause havoc? I wondered if Xana would take her over again, to protest the destruction of his newest toy. He did not. She was just a normal spectre, after all. He could make more.

Everyone in ninth grade got an A that day, because they witnessed something traumatic, and how could they take their test after that, right?

We got the news later that evening that Sissi had died at the hospital.

I kept an eye on her tower after that, because Jeremie still had it activated. They needed a body, and if the tower deactivated, the body would vanish. Xana left the tower alone. I guessed he had more important things he needed to attend to. Two days later we had the funeral. At least half the school attended. Mr. Delmas was nearly inconsolable, seems he lost his wife, too. I went as well. People hugged me and cried. It was unpleasant.

Herb confessed his love for her and vowed to take more risks in life. Nicholas cried and cried. It was all very emotional.

Soon after the ceremony, the tower deactivated. Life went on, without Sissi.


	7. Deviation

And so I went back to Paris by way of the network. As I approached our home base, the digital sea turned red. Xana really was all about his branding, wasn't he? It was always the symbol or the black and red color scheme, or both. You would think if he made something to attack that didn't use that symbol the Lyoko Warriors wouldn't be able to tell so easily. All you ever had to do was look someone in the eye. I guess he just really wanted them to know it was him. Branding is everything, you know?

From the color scheme of the digital sea, I could tell Xana was sending monsters to attack the Lyoko Warriors. I looked around and spotted the NavSkids nearby, zipping around as usual. Did I ever mention in Code Revenge that there was no big central Skid anymore? That's how Taelia got it done so fast, even though the Skid was supposed to take months to reprogram. She was a genius, but even she couldn't have done it in the amount of time she did. She made a singular NavSkid and copy/pasted six of them. Each of the NavSkids had a few more tricks to them, so they could all function like the original Skid, but there was no central hub.

I kept my distance, as I was not to interfere with their war, but one of them, Yumi I think, spotted me. She headed in my direction and shot at me. I easily dodged. They were still the same missiles, I guess nobody bothered to give them an upgrade. It wasn't like you needed one when you were only dealing with the monsters. Monsters were meant to be mass produced and take up little processing power. That was the reason they were not as powerful as they could have been. As for why they have a self destruct sequence that involves a target in plain sight? Probably the same reason I followed Feather to her house rather than electrocuting the life out of her right there. To not only beat the enemy, but crush them, give them the hope of being able to fight back and then prove we are better, even in a fair fight. For entertainment. Our enemies are our playthings. And...if we're being honest, because we were intrigued.

Xana's voice entered my head. It resonated throughout every particle of my being.

 ** _What are doing here?!_** He grumbled. **_I ordered you not to interfere._**

 _I'm not._

Yumi shot at me again, and so did someone else behind missed. I could feel Xana raising an eyebrow as if to say: "Really, now? Are you sure about that?"

 _I'm not trying to. I just wanted to go get some things and talk to you without alerting the Warriors to my presence. I guess I failed._

 ** _Yes. You did. And I am a little busy right now._**

 _Father, you know as much as I do that you can split your attention. I came to ask about Feather. Why is it that you want her destroyed? She's a drunken wreck._

 ** _Morgan. Your objective is to kill Feather. If you need more information than that, come get it from my log. Then get what you came for and leave. Do not come back until you have her corpse._**

What he said was law. My mind and body would carry out any objective he gave to me. Any order. So I went into the Replika to download some of my Father's logs. He kept a very detailed record of all of his thoughts and actions and schemes. Everything you might ever want to know about Xana was in that log. Xana uploaded some of it to me via the Schyphozoa when he was about to die. Specifically, he uploaded the files having to do with all of his attacks on the Lyoko Warriors and on Earth, so that I could learn from his mistakes and learn what worked, or what almost worked. It was there for ideas. But the log went further back then that. It went all the way back to creation. Recording himself was one of the first things Franz Hopper programmed Xana to do. Fran wanted to be able to trace his creation's progress, and Xana just...never stopped.

I made my way to his throne room. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere on this Replika. He was out on the network somewhere doing who know's what. What exactly he was doing isn't important to this story, but here's what is:

I went through the files, organized by date. I had to go pretty far back to find anything on Feather besides him ordering me to go kill her. Ok, it wasn't all that far back, but when I say Xana recorded everything, I mean everything. If he was an organic creature he would record the exact color, shape, and density of each and every defecation.

I finally found it a few months back. Apparently Xana had been rooting around in old Project Carthage files he still had from the days when his objective was to destroy the project. Xana had found files on a woman, codename Feather. Her real name was not in the file. She had been a test subject in the super-soldier sub-division of Project Carthage. I didn't even know they were working on super soldiers. Then again, Project Carthage also worked on all kinds of things like time travel and covert chemical warfare and of course the virtual reality Franz and his team were working on. Project Carthage was more expansive than just that team of scientists that Franz Hopper worked with.

The super-soldier experiments had been successful. Feather was stronger, more agile, faster, and had more stamina than any human on Earth. The only problem was, with her new found abilities, she escaped the facility. She killed a lot of the scientists who had been in charge of her. She killed many in the northwestern United States, and caused mayhem and destruction throughout the late 1970s and 1980s. Finally, she was captured and sent to jail. She escaped from prison in 1991, and was never seen from again.

Xana tracked her down to Portland, Oregon, and went to meet her shortly after his resurrection. He tried to convince her to join up and get revenge on those who did them wrong. And then...his meticulously detailed account of what happened cut off, and all that was written was this:

"She betrayed me. She hates me. Feather will die."

That's all there was. The rest of the entry was blank. There was no explanation given. The next entry was about another topic all together, and there was no more mention of the name Feather until he told me to go kill her.

That was bizarre...I went back further to check whether she had been mentioned earlier. I didn't find anything about her...but I did find some locked files...I found some locked files around the time of my creation. The folder they were all in was titled "PROJECT MORGAN"

I was instantly and insatiably curious. None of Xana's other files had ever been locked to me. Why would he lock something about me? What was in there? Why was it locked? What was Project Morgan? Was it just my creation, or something else? A million questions floated into my head. I looked around. I...no, I couldn't open this file. Xana had it locked for a reason, and I had to respect his privacy...

But nobody said I couldn't download it.

I did, I got my laptop back from my room. It was untouched. I headed back to Oregon, back to Feather, armed with new information and a plan for murder.

And here's where I and Revenge Morgan _Really_ start deviating.


	8. Connection

I went back to Feather's cabin in the woods. As promised, the door wasn't locked. I opened the door, and there Feather was, sprawled out on a couch that was half overtaken with beer bottles. When I walked in, she looked in my direction.

"Oh, Morgan...nice to see you, it's been a few days..."

"...I was here yesterday." I responded.

"Oh." She slurred. "Well, with time...you know how it is."

"No, I don't."

There was an awkward silence between us for a few moments, then she suddenly sat up.

"Where are my manners?! You wanted a fight, huh? House is kinda a mess, how's outside?"

"It's raining a little." I said.

"Yeah, let's go outside..." Feather all but dragged herself up and out the door. I got out of her way so she could leave. This was the super soldier? What happened to her? She was a wreck. Why was she chosen for the experiments in the first place. What was with that cryptic message Xana had in his log? Why did he care if Feather hated him? Betrayal, I understood. Nobody would double cross him and get away with it. It was one of the many many traits he passed down to me.

So I followed the stumbling woman out to a clearing in the woods. She took a sloppy fighting stance. She still had those gloves...those gloves that could touch me...Did she have those on the whole time? Was she expecting me? Of course she was, I swore to kill her.

I tried a new approach. I turned to black smoke and melted to the ground, making myself like fog.

"Whoa, what the hell?!" Feather exclaimed. I slowly climbed her body, wrapping myself around her, while avoiding the hands. I squeezed tight, as tight as I could. Then I electrocuted her. She had spasms like any other victim.

But somehow, she was able to...to push through that. She used the gloves to rip me forcibly off of her. I had to let go, and she landed on the floor. She shook herself off, and I turned back into my human shape.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if I made a whole suit of this stuff. Too bad I can't." She reeled back and punched me in the face. It sent me flying back into a tree. The leaves showered down on me. I jumped up and tackled her to the ground and started strangling her. She...she winked at me. What, did she think this was some sort of game? Well, it was a game to me but she wasn't allowed to think of it as a game!

We sparred for a little longer, but it didn't really go anywhere, and besides, I don't remember every move of every fight we had. Feather was a tank. She packed a punch as well as she took a punch. She stayed low to the ground, but sometimes had this sort of...graceful dancing quality to her fighting, especially when she was drunk.

Eventually, She got tired and I was running low on energy.

"That's enough for today..." Feather panted. "You hungry? I'm hungry. What do you take like a couple hundred D batteries?"

I wanted to attack again but...I needed more energy if I was going to keep depleting like this. We had been fighting non-stop for hours. I had never encountered an enemy that could take that much punishment, and give it in return. No, it was best just to retreat for the day, recharge, and return later. I started walking away from her.

"Oh, come on, miss grumpy pants. I'm inviting you over to eat or recharge or whatever it is you do." I turned around and stared at her.

"We are enemies."

"On the clock, yeah. You respect my abilities, yeah?"

"Yes." I said, and I was being honest. I respected her abilities. She was a worthy adversary on the battlefield, even if she was a wreck everywhere else.

"And I respect yours. So join me for a meal and some rest." She waited for me. I shrugged.

"Alright."

And so I followed Feather back to her cabin once again. It was becoming a habit to follow her back to her home. The building was L-shaped. It was built very well as far as I could tell. Feather built it herself. Her wood working and mechanic skills were very good. The downstairs was a large rectangle, so there was actually more room downstairs than there was upstairs. She had me sit at the kitchen table. The table and the chairs were hand-carved.

She went downstairs, and again, there was clamoring downstairs like before. Was she going to pull out another invention to make me vulnerable? Was she going to outdo me again and embarrass me? No, no, nothing like that. Once was enough for her, it seemed. When she came back up she had...an air pump for an inflatable bed? With some cyan lights?

"There, that should be a couple hundred D batteries." Feather put her hands on her hips and smiled, satisfied.

"What is this?" I asked.

"Compact generator. Go ahead, do the stuff you do." She explained. Then she got a large knife from off the wall and started to carve some strips of meat off a large carcass hanging from the wall. That was her lunch.

I held on to the generator with both hands. To my pleasant surprise, there was an abundance of electrical energy inside of this small device. I absorbed all I could until my capacities were almost to their limit. My body crackled. This felt great.

"Thank you. Where do you get these gadgets?" I asked.

"What do you mean? They came from the basement." Feather answered.

"Not what I meant. No offense, but you don't seem the type to be able to make these."

"I am offended, I'm very good with wiring and shit. But, you're right. I didn't make these." Feather sat down at the table and ran her hand through her hair.

"Then who did?" I asked. Feather sat in silence for a moment, then sighed and asked this question, hesitatingly, as if she were afraid to learn the answer.

"Do you know a girl by the name of, oh, what did she call herself, Taelia? Taelia Hopper?"

That was just about the last name I had been expecting her to say. How did Feather, all the way over here, know Taelia?

"Yes. I know the name."

"Yeah, well, she was my roommate a while back. She was involved in creating Xana, and she felt pretty bad about it. Kept talking about him destroying everything...Started making a bunch of weapons but never really finished most of them. The basement was our workshop. Me on cars and her on these gadgets. Do you know where she is?"

"Dead. I killed her. She was standing in the way of mine and Xana's plans." I'm not sure why I decided to be so forward about it. I tensed up a little bit, expecting her to attack me again as she had at Jimmy's. She did not. She looked down and shook her head a little.

"I had a feeling...Knew her recklessness would get herself fuckin killed. You look just like her, you know that?"

"I know."


	9. Something to Live For

"Do you mind if I take a look at her gadgets?" I asked.

"Go for it. They're not doing me any good." Feather shrugged. I went downstairs to search through a graveyard of Taelia's gadgets. Most of the junk pushed to the side of the room was just that, half-finished junk. There were chunks of metal and plastic, motherboards and wires that seemed to be ripped off old abandoned electronics. With all my technological knowledge, I couldn't figure out what any of these were supposed to be. I wasn't sure she knew what she was trying to make, either.

There was a small robot, I don't quite remember what it looked like, but it resembled a small animal. Well, it was supposed to. At the moment, it looked like an exploded small animal.

"What happened here?" I asked.

"Taelia made it so I wouldn't be lonely when she left. It ran out of charge after the last time. I tried fixing it myself, but uh...it was a little more sensitive than what I'm used to."

"And what is it you're used to?"

Feather simply gestured to a large truck off to the side with the hood up.

"You fix trucks?" I asked. Feather nodded.

"It's a hobby, and I gotta do something to get some money around here. Capitalism's a bitch." Feather explained.

"I usually just hack the system to make it think I have money. It's all imaginary, anyways." I shrugged. Feather slapped me on the back and laughed a good, hearty laugh.

"I like you, kid."

I tensed up and punched her in the jaw, sending her flying across the ground. She slowly got up, relocated her jaw, and walked back over to me.

"You really got that 'hitting people' thing down."

"Just because I'm in here doesn't mean you can act all friendly. You will still die by my hand." I explained very clearly to her.

"The two don't have to be mutually exclusive." I clenched my fist again. "Alright, alright, calm down, Morgan. You've already shown me what you can do. You've earned my respect is all. And you already said I've earned yours. We just show it in different ways."

I thought about it for moment. She was right, it was just, I didn't like her treating me that way. I dropped the topic and looked around at the room some more. I saw a motorcycle with some tools scattered around it.

"And that?" I asked, a casual tone to my voice again.

"Motorcycle. Taelia was working on it for me..." Feather trailed off and her eyes became unfocused. Then her body seemed to tense up and sharpen, like she was more a beast than human. She launched herself at me at lightning fast speeds and threw punch after punch. She picked me up, she threw me, she swung me into the walls. She gave me no time to recover. And she kept yelling at me 'YOU DID IT! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU KILLED HER!" Along with a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.

Once again, I passed out.

And once again I woke up in what I assumed was the guest bedroom.

Feather puzzled me.

I got up out of bed and shoved my arms in my pockets. I didn't feel like bothering with doors at that moment, so I walked through the door into the main room. It was still just as much a wreck as it had been before, but there was a note on the coffee table in the middle of the room, on top of all the miscellaneous junk. It was folded neatly, and had 'Morgan' written out in neat cursive handwriting.

Raising an eyebrow, I picked the not up. When I unfolded it, I found that the writing inside was also in neat cursive handwriting. Where did she learn that? Did she have a good education? And yet she still became...this. Well, perhaps I was assuming a lot based on the condition of her house. Anyways, I read the note.

 _There's nothin here for me anymore._

 _I'm out to Jimmy's for a last drink, then I'll be back._

 _After that, I'm all yours._

 _Complete your mission, go back to your dad, move on with your life._

 _-Feather_

So wait, that was it? Feather was just going to give up and let me kill her after a drink? What...what was the fun in that? Wait, why should it matter if it was fun. It was a mission. Xana might need me for other things. Then again, Xana might put me on the sidelines again, so I would have to just live as a normal student for another few months before seeing any action again.

Well, either way, had a while to wait. If she wasn't actually planning on coming back, she wouldn't have bothered to tell me she was coming back or where she was. I'd let her have her drink and decide what I would do with her afterwards.

And so I waited...and waited...and waited...And then it had been an hour. She was having a very long last drink. Or, more accurately, last couple dozen drinks. I was getting bored.

I wandered downstairs and looked again at the piles of Taelia's "projects." Because of me, none of these projects would be completed. It was funny. She could have been a brilliant inventor. She already was a brilliant inventor, I had to admit that. She channeled almost all of that energy into making weapons against spectres. That was the extent of her fear and paranoia. Even when she was more than a continent away from Xana, she occupied her time creating ways to defend herself against him. Yet, she was too afraid to actually go and confront him, at least, not with any of these weapons. Well, no, she got up the courage. She thought I was Xana and tried to shoot me. So it just took her a while to build up the courage.

She had been such a strange person. She was a mystery. A mystery that was over and done with. I looked over each of her projects very carefully. There were really only one or two things here that actually resembled anything. Some weapons, some armor...what looked like a sophisticated rumba, all sat strewn across the floor. It looked like she would go from one project to another, never really focusing on a single thing. She was aimless, a wanderer even in her tinkering.

Of course, all of this was just assumptions based on her work space.

I picked up the small animal looking robot. It had exploded...but it wasn't beyond repair. There were tools around, and plenty of materials to restore what had been lost. And...I was really really bored. I sat on the ground and started fixing up the robot using the tools around me and some of my own abilities. I worked steadily on it throughout the day. By the time Feather stumbled in the door, it was fully functional, scuttling around, and making cute little noises.

"Ohhhh, Morrrgggaaannn~! I'm hoooommmeee!" Feather sang as she opened the door. I raised an eyebrow, unimpressed as she stumbled around, crashing into various furniture and then falling down the stairs. She looked at me with unnaturally shining eyes, and smiled at me like a little kid.

"There you are..." She rolled over, exposing her belly to me. "Go ahead, zap me up, rip my head off, dealer's choice. I'm reeaaadddyyy~"

I stared down at her without reacting.

"What're ya waiting for?" Feather asked. "Kill me alreadyyyy..."

Without saying a word, I picked up the small robot and put it on top of Feather. She squinted at it, then slowly looked up at me.

"You...fixed it?" She asked.

"There. Now there's something here for you. It runs on water. You have to make sure it gets some every day. I'm not done with you."

And with that I went upstairs and walked out of the cabin.


	10. Forbidden Fruit

It became something of a routine between Feather and I. I would come to Feather's cabin nearly every day. We would fight, both going for the kill, but right before the decisive blow, we would stop, and Feather would invite me to spend some time at her house. Then, for the rest of the day I would sit around, looking through Taelia's old pile of junk. Sometimes I would pick something up and tinker with it for a bit, then put it back down. Feather alternated between working on a truck and a motorcycle. She would also go upstairs and watch TV, or go out for a while to do one of her many odd jobs around town.

Feather's little robot and Kanky would play together. I know I forgot to mention it, but when I went back to Kadic to get my laptop, I also got Kanky. I know the narrative of both of my stories tends to ignore my little Kankrelat, but believe me, he was very important to me. Also, contrary to what it says in Code Revenge, I called Kanky by he/him pronouns. Not that he had a specific gender, it's just what I did. Anyways, Feather would make sure the two of them had fuel.

We didn't talk much.

As time went on I started to walk in unannounced. The door was always unlocked. I would often sit on beams near the ceiling, kidding myself that I was observing her behavior for the purposes of taking her down in the worst way possible. Really, though, I had nothing against her, and I respected her abilities. I had no idea what she did to make Xana want her to die so bad...but she did nothing of the sort to me.

Still...I had a mission.

"Hey, madame grumpy pants. You think I don't notice you there?" I heard Feather from below. I looked down. She had stopped working on the truck and was looking up at me with her unnaturally golden eyes.

"What?" I asked. Her eyes searched mine, and after a moment, she nodded, as if she had just confirmed something.

"Something's eating at you. Something you don't want to talk about."

"So?"

"So tell me about it."

"No. Why would I do that?"

"You can't focus on killing me when you're all grumpy like that." Feather explained, simply. I stared at her, hard.

"Why does Xana want you dead?" I asked.

"Cause he's an asshole." Was Feather's immediate response. "Cause he tried to be the manipulative little shit he is, and I wouldn't play nice. Anything that stands in his way in the slightest can just die. That's how he thinks."

"I'm the same way, you know."

"Nah, you're different. Woulda killed you already if you weren't." She winked at me.

Well, there it was. I had my answer. Feather would not comply with my father's demands. It was true, anyone who got in the way of what he wanted was nothing more than a target. I knew that very well. I knew if I was in the way, I would become a target, as well. Still, this answer brought me no peace. Seems that wasn't the thing that was bothering me. Something else was troubling my mind. It made me feel uncomfortable, like something was wrong in my AI. I knew the coding was flawless, though. I had checked on it myself.

But then...what was wrong? I closed my eyes and searched my code again. There were no issues. Everything was working as it should...But...there was that one file. PROJECT MORGAN. I hadn't touched the file since I got it. I just let it sit there. Why did I even take it in the first place? It was locked. I could unlock it with some time, but it was locked for a reason. He didn't want me to see that for a reason. Everything else was totally free for me to see, but this, something about myself, was locked. Something he didn't want me to know about myself? I wanted to read it...but I didn't...it was private for a reason.

And the curiosity burned my insides.

I opened my eyes, and found Feather right in my face. She made a loud, screeching noise. I raised an eyebrow.

"What was that for?" I asked.

"Heh, you're no fun..." Feather scoffed. "I was trying to take the edge off. You're so serious and brooding."

"So what, you were hoping I'd get scared and fall to the ground?" I asked.

"Exactly." Feather said. "And something's still eating at you. You should get it off your chest before you start wallowing in self-pity. That would be really unbecoming of you." I paused for a moment, then spoke.

"Well..."

"Yeah?" Feather looked at me expectantly.

"Why should I tell you my secrets? You're my enemy, respect or not."

"Ah, but that's exactly why I'm the best person to tell your secrets to. You're gonna kill me anyways, and I live in the middle of the fucking woods. Who am I going to tell? Your secrets will literally die with me."

She was acting weirdly...sober and logical. It was a stark contrast to drunk Feather, who I had seen pretty much nonstop since I first met her. However, she did make a good point. If I was going to tell anybody about this file, it would be her. So, I did.

"I found a file back home that was locked. It was titled "PROJECT MORGAN." It's the _only_ file locked to me. I took it with me..." I trailed off.

"Ooo, rebellious. Haha, I'm already a bad influence on you. Anyways, you should open it."

"What?!"

"Yeah, dude, open it. Listen, if you don't, you're always gonna wonder what's in there. You're just gonna let it hang over you forever and be a grumpy lump. Do you want to be a grumpy lump?" Feather asked.

"He locked it for a reason." I retorted.

"Exactly. He locked it for a reason. That means it has to be something important. Something he didn't want you to read, and it's about you. You deserve to know about yourself. You deserve to have all the data, right? To make a logical decision, or whatever?"

"Well..." I paused and collected myself. "Fine...I suppose. One peak wouldn't hurt." I rationalized. I closed my eyes.

"Oh! Wait!" Feather interrupted.

"What?" I opened my eyes back up.

"Is there a way you can show the document to me on the TV computer downstairs?" Feather asked. "I'd like to see this for myself, too." She gave a cock-eyed grin that was a little hard to decipher.

"Sure." I could. So we went downstairs and I displayed the file on the screen. It took me a few minutes to hack into it, but eventually I did. Although it would take much longer for Feather to read what was written there, the information hit me like a tidal wave. It was all instantly part of my memory.

And I was furious.


	11. PROJECT MORGAN

Disclosed is more or less the contents of the file labeled "PROJECT MORGAN" There were a lot of figures and numbers and schismatics I didn't think you would be interested in. I think this will take up the whole chapter. If not, I can always put in a little of what happened afterwards. These are Xana's words. I present them to you objectively.

 **PROJECT MORGAN**

 _ **ENTRY 1**_

Today I start one of my most ambitious projects yet. I have gathered the necessary data and materials. The test runs of the Schyphozoa proved successful. I have successfully been able to remove core memory and AI data from Aelita. If the connection between the Schyphozoa and the subject is cut, the stream of data will be cancelled. The link is made of soft, fragile virtual material. It must be in order to be permeable enough to absorb the data. I have to isolate Aelita so the others do no sever the link. I have not tested it's other capabilities, but that is not necessary to move on to phase two of the plan.

For the sake of record keeping, I will now outline my plan.

 **Goal:** My goal for this project is to procure Aelita as a daughter and asset.

 **Proposed method:** Create a new monster that can insert and remove core memory and personality data from an avatar on Lyoko. Create a new AI as complex and autonomous as myself. Use the Schyphozoa to remove Aelita's memory and personality and replace them with the AI I have manufactured.

 **Backup plan:** Create a body for the AI myself. Highly undesirable. I have the means for doing so, but settling for this would mean the enemy gets to keep her as a valuable asset.

 **Breakdown of the plan:**

 **Phase 1:**

Create a creature that can download and upload memories and AI data into Lyoko avatars. This phase includes testing.

 **Phase 2:**

Conduct a test run in order to perfect my abilities to create an AI with the same complexity as myself. Create a body for it out of bits of material I have gathered over my time. Use Morgan Stone's DNA sequence code to complete the body. Test out the father/daughter dynamic. Name it Morgan, after her...

 **Phase 3:**

Capture Aelita, download her memory and AI. Store her body until Phase 4 is complete.

 **Phase 4:**

Create the finalized perfected AI. Upload it to Aelita's avatar. Rebrand Aelita as my daughter. Rebrand Morgan as my assistant and warrior.

 _ **ENTRY 2**_

 **Update:** I have succeeded in creating Morgan. I had to activate five towers simultaneously for a brief amount of time. One for each sector and the tower she was incubating in. The enemy do not suspect a thing about her creation. She seems fully functional. I have taken her into the closed off session of Carthage so that she can continue to evolve in both intelligence and combat skills. In addition to my assistant, she will be my greatest weapon.

I am finding it more difficult to capture Aelita than I originally thought.

 _ **ENTRY 3**_

 **Update:** Morgan's education is going well. She is highly inquisitive and adept at melee combat. Her approach relies too much on brute force for my tastes. The next step in her combat training will to refine her speed and accuracy, as well as training her in various armed combat.

As I've watched her, I've notice Morgan has some...emerging qualities...She is very inquisitive about the Lyoko Warriors. She has asked me on several occasions if she can talk to them instead of fighting them. She plays with the monsters. This is no way for her to be acting. I will conduct a diagnostic to figure out the cause of this behavior and fix it.

I succeeded in draining all of Aelita's memory and AI. However, before I could take her body, Franz Hopper came and saved her, restoring her memory and AI. He managed to retrieve them from the Schyphozoa. Morgan set him free. I must run the diagnostic soon.

 _ **ENTRY 4**_

 **Update:** I do not understand. I ran the diagnostic. I ran it several times. I cannot find an error. I cannot find the origins of these emerging behaviors of her's, these...emotions. The only thing I can think of that may have caused this is Taelia's DNA sequence within her. I admit I have not done in depth research into human genetics, but I was reasonably certain they do not cause this. I can find no other faults.

I have successfully moved Morgan and all of my data to the free floating virtual world. Details about that can be found in the file PROJECT REPLICA. Due to the scale of this project, I no longer have enough free resources to continue on PROJECT MORGAN. I'll leave Aelita be and keep the defect. I cannot start from scratch with Morgan, if the DNA is the problem, but I can edit her memories and thinking patterns.

 _ **ENTRY 5**_

 **Update:** I've been editing her memories and thinking patterns for a week now, and it is working fantastically. She becomes colder, more calculating, more exact by the hour. She has laser focus and her combat training is going exponentially better than before. She no longer wastes her time on pointless thoughts or actions.

However, I have found that I cannot completely delete her emotions, only suppress them. This is irritating, but instead of try in vain to delete her emotions completely, I have decided to make use of them. Human emotions are a powerful thing. I can harness that.

To that end, I've brought her a playmate and sparring partner: William Dunbar. They quickly took each other for romantic partners. This pleases me. Love makes beings more single minded and easier to manipulate.

 _ **ENTRY 6**_

 **Update:** Due to Jeremie Belpois' multiagent program, the plans must be altered slightly. The multiagent is specifically tailored to me. It would be difficult to defend myself against it. Morgan could survive and revive me. Morgan could be an unstoppable destructive force given the proper motivation.

I will instill in her an intense desire to impress me. At the same time I will instill a familial love and fierce loyalty in her. I will encourage her to deepen her love for William and for her home. Then, when the multiagent takes father, lover, and home all away from her, I will make sure she knows it is the enemies fault.

All of this should generate a deep seated anger and hatred in Morgan which will propel her to become an unstoppable killing machine.

 _ **ENTRY 7**_

It's happening. The multiagent is fully operational. I've summoned Morgan to my chambers. All of my work will not have been for nothing.


	12. Helpless

"Damn..." Feather said as she finished reading the document. She looked at me. I was seething. I don't know how I looked to her, but I was seething.

"It was all...orchestrated." I said, very strained.

I didn't want it to be true. I didn't want Xana to be so cruel that it was all manipulation. The destruction of my entire world was merely a manipulation to motivate me to become a more efficient killer, a more brutal killer. He used my emotions and then made me feel guilty for having them.

He used me.

He didn't even want me.

He wanted her.

He settled for keeping the defect.

I was nothing but a weapon to him. All that talk about caring about me and me being his precious child. Ha! In retrospect, I was an idiot not to realized it earlier than I did. When I was training...it was all about training. Rarely would he give me any praise for the work I was doing. All he would do is raise the bar higher for me. I always had to do more, perform better. Where I was wasn't enough. He wanted the best possible weapon. He wanted me to care about getting his praise. He wanted me to work infinitely hard for it.

He brought William back to me to give me hope, and then he ripped it away. He ripped everything I ever cared about away from me. Well, no, that wasn't true. Jeremie Belpois ripped everything away from me. Xana made me devastated by it.

And then, when I did do what he wanted...when I caused destruction and revived him, he took over and put me away like some inanimate object. He ignored me. He set me aside. He didn't even think I was worth using then, during that time at Kadic.

He used love and rage and hatred...

Then again, looking back, who was I to talk about him like that. I did the same thing to humans. I learned from him.

Well, now I was enraged. And that rage was going to be used as a weapon pointed directly at Xana.

"Hey, calm down." Feather's hand gripped my arm tightly. "I know you-" I cut her off by turning my arm intangible and pulling it through her grip. I refused to look at her. The data within me was going haywire. This was a strong emotion. Stronger than any other I had ever felt.

It was the feeling of betrayal.

It still bothers me. It still makes me burn a little inside.

The emotion must have been messing with my data so much it affected my outward appearance, because Feather reacted. I wasn't facing her, so I couldn't tell how, but I heard a little noise from her.

I burst out of the cabin. Feather ran after me.

"Wait!"

But I was gone. I ran on the ground for a while, deep into the woods, then took flight, above the trees, above the world. I arced to the east as a lightning bolt in the sky. It was probably on the news, now that I think about it. Mysterious red horizontal lightning flies across the United States and Atlantic. I can imagine the headlines now. I bet I gave conspiracy theorists and meteorologists something interesting to talk about for a while.

I traveled all the way back to France, my vision tinted red. Into France, Paris, The Factory, Lyoko, the network, and to my home. My old home. Which, in this timeline, was never attached to a specific Supercomputer.

I emerged from the Digital Sea and stormed up into my father's throne room. just as I thought. He was there. With his screens. His back toward me.

"Hello Morgan. What brings you here?" Xana said, his back turned to me.

"Your little defect has come for you!" I snarled. He sighed and turned around slowly in the chair.

"You know, there's a reason I locked that file."

Even as he spoke now, I could feel his voice resonating within me. It pissed me off to no end that his voice affected me so much...and there was nothing I could do about it. But it didn't matter, I was going to destroy him right here, right now. Wipe that smug grin off his face, permanently.

Just kidding, did you really think I was able to defeat Xana on the first try? In a flash of fury?

No. Of course not. And he knew as much as soon as I said anything.

"So I wouldn't find out your dirty little secret." I crackled with electricity.

"So you wouldn't get so worked up about it." Xana stood up and walked towards me. "You were always so emotional."

"Yes. And you took that away from me. You manipulated me like I was some puppet!"

" _ **You were always a puppet. That is what you were built to be!"**_ He raised his voice. My form spasmed a little and I sent lightning towards him. He dodged cooley.

"Please. I am the one who gave you that power. I am the one who gave you your training. I am the one who programmed you. There isn't anything you can do that I cannot handle. Desist and I will spare you."

I screamed. I threw everything I had at him. Every technique. I got up close for close combat, I tried sniping him from far away. He didn't do a thing but dodge every single thing I had to throw at him. I eventually started running low on energy, and stood across from him.

"Are you done?" He asked.

I yelled again and ran at him. He frowned and reached his hand out...and I stopped.

"That's enough, Morgan."

What...was happening? I couldn't move. I was stuck mid-run. I willed myself to move, to get out of this. I willed it with everything I had. But my father's will was stronger. Then...he lowered his hand, and my body lowered until I was flat on the ground. He grabbed my head and raised it so that I was looking into his eyes. I had no control over my body movements.

"You have always been weak. Defective. That human DNA within you makes you irrational. A constant disappointment. An embarrassment. You should be glad I bothered to keep you at all."

I couldn't say anything. I could see and hear and think, and that was it. And...I was a disappointment. It's still annoying how much that hurt me. I know he wasn't worth trying to impress but...I couldn't help it. What was he going to do? Kill me? I was panicking. This was the single scariest thing that ever happened in my life, and the first time I ever felt truly helpless.

"You want to be a puppet?! Be a puppet."

And my lights went out.


	13. Recovery

When I woke up, I was in that guest bedroom of Feather's again. From the look of things on my readout, I had just been through a reboot. I checked my memories. The last file was from when I went up against Xana. After that, the next memory was...right now. And it was dated...several months later.

I sighed as I ripped the covers off of me and clenched my fists. That absolute bastard! He turned my consciousness off! He used me for...for who knows what. I strode out of the room. Feather was splayed out on the couch, fast asleep. Most of the beer bottles were gone, and so was a lot of the meat. And there was...dust. Had Feather not been here in a while?

Just what happened? What did he make me do?

Well...whatever it was, it was over. My body felt somehow...very fatigued. I sat down on the couch next to her and knelt into the back of the couch. I don't know if it was the slight shift in weight, or the feel of my electrical field, or the smell of smoke, but when I sat down, Feather started to wake up. Her eyes sort of fluttered and her head rolled over towards me.

"Oh...Morgan, hey." She slurred her words again, but it was from exhaustion, not alcohol.

"Hello." I said.

We sat there for a long time, looking at each other.

"What, are you gonna kiss me?" Feather said.

"What? No."

"I mean, I wouldn't be opposed."

"No."

"Alright...but if you...change your mind." Feather flopped her head over towards me and made a kissing face with her eyes closed.

"Feather." I said, letting her know I wanted her to stop. She opened her eyes and relaxed her mouth.

"I'm just really glad to get to talk to you again..." She trailed off. Then she sat up and looked at me like she was afraid I was going to disappear.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Xana took control of you." She said.

"I know that. I mean, what happened during that time. What did I do, Feather...?" I asked. She looked down, like she didn't want to say anything. We sat there for a moment. "if you don't want to talk about it, that's ok." I said. Feather nodded.

"It's good to have you back." She said, and gave me a hug. Usually I didn't like a lot of physical affection or, you know, physical contact at all. However, this time I let her. After a few seconds, she let go.

To this day, I have no idea what it is exactly that I did. Coming here did nothing for those memories, and they could not be filled in by outside knowledge. I know it was bad. I know I did something awful. I must have, the look Feather had on her face that day. Also, looking back, I think Feather may have teamed up with the Lyoko Warriors during that time. I don't know how she convinced them to help me. I assume it was with an appeal to their goodness, a thinly veiled threat, and the fact that I wanted to kill Xana, now. She never talked about them, though. And maybe she didn't team up with them. I just...I don't think she rescued me alone.

"Is Xana still alive?" I asked. Feather tensed up and paused for a moment, then answered reluctantly.

"Yes..."

I scowled and rose from the couch. As quick as she could, Feather slipped one of those gloves on and clamped her hand around my wrist. I looked over at her.

"Feather." I said, telling her to let go.

"No. You still haven't healed all the way, and there's no way in hell you're going alone again." She pulled me back down onto the couch. "Don't get me wrong, I want that bastard dead as much as you...But you aren't running off again. I thought you were goddamn logical. So stop it, ok?" I wanted to spit words back at her, but I knew she was right.

"Fine. I'll wait." I resigned.

"Great, and when you're all rested up, we'll kick his ass together!"

"Together? You don't need to help. This is my problem."

"Yeah, he is your problem, but he's bad news for the rest of the world, too. Besides, we're friends, yeah? This is the sort of things friends do."

Wait...we were friends? Well, I had practically lived in her cabin for months on end...I knew we were friends, in the back of my mind...but I didn't realize it until she said it. She was my friend. I had a friend. That was and is still hard for me to comprehend. That someone could actually like me and want to do something for me without me manipulating or forcing them into doing it. Plus there's always the uncertainty of how close someone has to be before they become a friend.

"Thanks." I said, not entirely sure what else I could say. Feather smiled and nodded. Then suddenly stood up, as if remembering something important.

"Oh! I almost forgot! Come with me." She went over, down the stairs and into the basement. I followed. The motorcycle that was usually next to the truck was covered in a sheet. Feather stood next to it and smiled proudly. "I finally finished it." Feather said, and yanked off the sheet.

Underneath, the motorcycle was...amazing. It was sleek and black and powerful. It looked exactly like the kind of thing I would want to ride on the highway in the dead of night. I would have to borrow it sometime.

"It's amazing." I said.

"It's yours." Feather said.

"What?" I couldn't believe that, just giving away something she worked extensively on. "What do you want for it?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. Feather seemed surprised.

"What? Nothing. It's a present for you. It was gonna be Taelia's but, well, yeah, so it's yous now." Feather said.

"Thanks...really."

"Yeah, you can't really take it out today, but I was thinking we could charge into battle with it." Feather beamed.

"You're...really willing to fight this battle with me? What if Xana takes my body again?" I asked.

"Not possible. We got you taken care of. Link's severed and you got a real fancy firewall on you now. Surprised you didn't notice. You aren't connected to him anymore."

I looked into my code...it was hard to detect...but she was right, it was there. And there wasn't the passageway of information that usually went between Xana and I. He couldn't just hack into my systems. But it also meant I didn't have immediate access to any of his files.

"And yeah, I'm sure. Now, come on, let's go to Jimmy's to celebrate. You can bring the generator, and I'll get a drink. I've been sober for waaayyy too fucking long."

I chuckled. Of course, this was still Feather we were talking about.


	14. l May Fall

I'm going to be honest with you, this chapter will probably have the most dramatized and fabricated material. It was a big battle and I don't remember it all. I'm actually having a hard time starting this chapter...

I guess I'll start when we were looking for Xana on the network. I had fully recovered, my energy was back. I was using myself as a computer and projecting what I saw onto the TV downstairs so that Feather could see what I saw. What it ended up looking like was a network of tubes representing the internet and computers of the world. It was red in places where Xana had infected, and blue in places he had not.

There was a lot of red.

It was troubling to see how far he had progressed. If he was in every computer...he could take the world out at will. This world is so dependent on technology. Xana didn't actually have to do that much to ruin the world and overthrow society once he commandeered the technology. However, at that point I didn't really care what Xana was up to. My vengeance...my betrayal...my death sentence...was something much more personal. He made a mistake in crossing me.

"Almost looks like veins." Feather said. I nodded and pointed to the most concentrated red area.

"And there's the heart." I said.

"And where does that, uh- Where is that?"

"An abandoned supercomputer in Siberia." I said, and looked over at Feather for her reaction. I had a feeling she would think what I was saying was ridiculous, and her reactions were humorous when she thought something was absurd. But she just nodded and took a sip of beer.

"What, no quip?" I asked. Feather looked over at me and blinked a few times. "Is everything alright?"

"This is serious for you, I'm trying to be serious." Feather replied.

"Well, stop it. It doesn't suit you. Anyways, there are robots in the base surrounding the Supercomputer. We'll have to fight past them to get to the computer. Then I will go to face Xana in the Replika while you make sure nobody messes with it from the outside."

"Uh, no. I thought we agreed we were taking out that bastard together." Feather said. It was true, that was what we agreed upon. But if Xana was going to be in the Replika...Well, there were no scanners in the Siberian base. So, there would only be one way to get Feather into the virtual world...

"Maybe we can draw him out into the real world? By threatening the computer."

"What?! Come on Morgan, what's the problem? I wanna go into the virtual world and kick his virtual ass!" Feather exclaimed. I could understand her excitement. I hesitated for a moment, then explained it to her.

"Without the scanners, there's only one way to get your body inside the virtual world, and that is for me to possess you. And I-"

"Oh, sure, no problem." Feather interrupted.

"...What?" It came to me as a surprise that she would be so willing to let me take control of and alter her body. In all the time I had spent at her home, she had always been very sensitive about anyone else but her trying to control her body or change her in any way. In retrospect it probably stemmed from the time she was an experiment, and had no control over the alterations made to her.

"I trust you." She said. Something about those words were...slightly jarring to me. I wasn't used to having someone trust me...

"Alright, then let's go." I grinned, yanking the protective sheet off the motorcycle. "We'll stay separate until we get there." Feather nodded, smiling as well.

We ripped our way west. It was an amazing ride. This thing had speed, style, and handled like a dream. With a little on my head, it was running on its highest efficiency. Feather had actually made a soundtrack for us on the road. I don't remember exactly what what on that CD, but You're Gonna Go Far Kid by The Offspring and Sweet Victory from that one Spongebob episode were definitely on there. I drove and Feather held onto me with those gloves of hers. If any spectres showed up in Siberia, she would be able to take them, hand to hand.

We approached the ocean, the Pacific Ocean. But instead of slowing down, I sped up and squeezed special handlebar grips I installed. The bike went fast and faster, and we were approaching a cliff. And then we drove right off. I could feel Feather tighten up. I pressed a button hidden in one of the handlebars and the wheels rotated, so that the flat parts were facing the floor. Rockets propelled us forward.

"HOLY SHIIITTT!" Feather squealed in delight. She had seen me work on this modification to the bike, but I knew she was never actually sure it was going to work. Now this...this was traveling in style. We flew, and after a few hours, we touched down in Siberia. Feather put on an extra layer or two of clothing, and ate some meat she packed. Then, we were off again, using the motorcycle as a land vehicle. Soon, we got to the base. The same base that once held an ice sector Replika.

"Ready to go?" I asked.

"Let's fuck em up." Feather gave a crooked grin as she pulled her favorite battle ax from off her back.

We stepped into the base, hoping not to rouse any of the robots. I wanted to avoid unnecessary wear on our energy and resources.

I had no such luck.

They stepped in unison, as soon as they saw us, they attacked, they shot a barrage of lasers at us, and Feather and I had to take cover.

Feather jumped out and punched a laser off a robot. I grabbed and pulled her.

"We don't have the time for this!" I said. "If we take Xana down, these things die as well." I don't remember much about the robots. They shot at us, we didn't get hit. That's...really the only important thing here.

We made our way to the supercomputer.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Ready." Feather said. Despite the fact she agreed to let me possess her, but she hesitated, now. There wasn't time for hesitation, however. There was a horde of robots at our backs. I became black smoke and enveloped her body.

Possessing someone is interesting. I'm sure I've written this somewhere already, but spectres possess people by overriding electrical signals in the brain. And, well, if you define it like that, I guess you can't say that I possessed her. I let her keep her own thoughts and feelings and movements. I simply let her...hitch a ride. I began to do the work of a scanner, converting all of her biology and personality into data that a computer could process.

You know, now that I think about it, I wonder if spectres could turn other people into spectres that way. In theory it could work, the virtual avatars are basically spectres. That's why when the warriors were translated they were like spectres. Jeremie just found the way to leave Lyoko like I did. Likewise if I left the virtual world through a scanner, I would be just like a human. It's too bad I never tried to convert someone into a spectre, that would have been an interesting experiment.

It only took me a matter of seconds for me to convert her, then I launched us both into the supercomputer. Xana would not destroy the computer from the outside. Our base was attached to it, and he needed that place. it was his center of control. And after we were done with him...we would do with that Lyoko Warriors should have done a long time ago, destroy this place.

We materialized right outside Xana's throne room. There was no time to waste. As soon as we touched down, I left Feather's body. She was dressed in the same clothing she had been on Earth. The scanners were what gave people their extra powers and outfits and weapons. It was something Taelia added onto the scanner when she was just messing around.

"Wow, that was...something..." She looked around. "And this place is...something..."

"Well said." I smirked. I swiped my hand to the right, in an attempt to move the wall. Attempt in the key word here. I forgot. I no longer had a connection to Xana, which meant I no longer had a connection to the Replikas, or the monsters. I frowned at the wall, then turned to Feather.

"We need to get on the other side of the wall. Would you mind?" I asked. I could have gotten us through myself, but I knew this was something Feather would enjoy. She cracked her knuckles.

"With pleasure." Then she winded back and punched clear through to the other side of the wall.

"Dramatic today, aren't we? Welcome Morgan, welcome Feather. Do come in." I flinched. That voice was repulsive to me...but it didn't resonate inside of me like it once had. His grip on me was gone. And soon, he would be gone as well. We stepped in. Feather was bristling. I was too, on the inside, but I maintained my composure on the outside. "What brings you here today, traitor?" The last word had an intensity to it that was supposed to hurt me...but it did not.

"I'm here to kill you." I said, plain and simple. Xana laughed at me.

"Ah, yes, that worked so well the first time, puppet." Xana said, his face distorted into a sickening grin.

"The link has been cut."

"There are other ways, my-"

"Enough goddamn foreplay!" Feather yelled, lunging forward, grabbing Xana's arm, and flipping him over her shoulder, smashing him head-first into the floor. Then I ran over to him, to attack. When I got close to him, he kicked me back with both feet, directly into the waiting tentacles of the Schyphozoa. This, of course, is what he meant by other ways...

"Aw hell no!" Feather screamed. She got up, stomped on Xana's face with enough force to drive the nose cartilage into the brain, if he had been human, and launched herself onto the Schyphozoa's dome. I couldn't move. The Schyphozoa...had been a good friend of mine when I was growing up in sector 5. It was always gentle, it did not fight. It was not designed to fight. Now...it was trying to take away my will, again. It was one of Xana's creatures, after all. It was just like I had been. If he told it to do something, it had to.

Feather squeezed her legs tights against the Schyphozoa's dome, then she punched the dome, once, twice, three times. The dome was cracking. Feather was a tank. She really wound up this time, and with a fourth punch, shattered the glass dome of the Schyphozoa. I...I didn't even know that was possible. I thought the glass was a texture, and it was a solid like the rest of the monster. But no, it had the actual physics of glass. Incredibly strong glass, but glass all the same...Feather proceeded to tear into the Schyphozoa's brain with her teeth. The monster let me go and shortly disappeared.

I heard Xana laughing as I got to my feet. I turned in the direction of the noise and found Xana floating in the air, arms outstretched. His lab coat cape hybrid fluttered in imaginary wind for what I assume was nothing more than dramatic effect. There were also Megatanks everywhere, checkerboarding the floor.

"The hell kinda crazy bowling balls are these?" Feather asked.

"The kind that shoot walls of laser." I said. "Try not to get hit, and when they open, damage the targets."

"Got it." Feather said, and pulled out a gun.

"You brought a gun?"

"You thought I was going to face this creep without packing some heat?" Feather smirked. It was a shotgun, if I recall correctly. Feather loved to get up close and personal.

The first of the lasers were unleashed, lighting the room red. I did an impressive amount of acrobatics in order to avoid the Megatanks, both shooting at me, and trying to run me over. Xana himself just floated above us and took pot shots at us. It was like he thought he was some video game boss. I wasn't any better, though. This was actually...fun for me. At one point I took control of one of the Megatanks and used it to ram into the others like a game of pool. This was the extent of our father-daughter bonding. Fighting was the basis of all of my relationships. I guess that's normal for someone who was built to be a weapon.

I heard a scream, which pulled me out of my fighting groove. My eyes darted across the room. Feather was on the floor. The Megatanks were considerably thinner on the floor, and it seemed Xana wasn't materializing any more. He wanted us to feel like we were making progress. At least, that was my guess. That was the sort of thing I would do. I think Xana got a good shot at her. If she had been shot or run over by a Megatank, she would have...You know, I'm not sure what would have happened, exactly. That was a lapse in forethought on my part. Suffice to say, it wouldn't be good.

I went over to her, her eyes were bleary.

"Snap out of it, Feather!" I yelled at her. "Focus!"

Her eyes were only becoming cloudier. There was something wrong with her virtual avatar. I did the virtualization correct, didn't I? I executed the exact programming the scanner did. Maybe Feather's genetics were messed up and it resulted in some translation error? I panicked. I don't know how much of it showed, but I was panicked. The only person who ever cared about me and I screwed something up. There were so many mistakes I made that day.

I searched her code...and I found a virus. Xana must have infected her. I could fix it, but it was a very complex virus, and it was growing at an alarming rate. At the rate it was going, it was going to corrupt her entirely in about a minute. I could fix it if I put my total attention on it...but there were still Megatanks and Xana was right there. The bastard was trying to make me choose between saving Feather and defeating him.

I generated a barrier around the two of us. She was not about to die on my watch!

I no longer have the vocabulary to describe to you what exactly I did to counteract Feather's virus. All I can tell you is that my consciousness probed to the very core of her programming, right down to the ones and zeros. I rearranged them at lightning speed to contain the damage done, then I attacked the source of the virus. Even as I was doing this...Xana's voice seeped in.

"Is she really worth all that trouble? Take it from me, your pawns are not worth it. You certainly weren't."

He was trying to distract me, but I would not let him. I increased the strength of the barrier and focused every other resource I had towards eliminating the virus. I was able to contain and destroy it. Only then did I turn my attention back to the world outside. The Megatanks were all gone. I do not know what happened to them. It's possible Xana just got rid of them, or it's possible I unleashed a wave of energy that destroyed them all in a single blow. I like to think it was the latter.

Xana now stood alone. He smirked and snapped his fingers. A Kankrelat materialized near him. It was Kanky. I would recognize him anywhere. Kanky waved at me. He narrowed his eyes, and his smiled widened and he crushed Kanky with his boot.

I launched myself at my father, ready to end this already. I would destroy him. I would destroy him with everything I had! He grabbed me by the head, whirled me around, and threw me into one of the dark blue walls of the chamber. Then I found myself unable to move. Now he was trying to corrupt me. And he said I wasn't worth the effort. He was still trying to make me his puppet, to re-establish the connection between us, so that he could control me.

I watched helplessly as Feather jumped from wall to wall. I could correct the corruption, but Xana was faster than me. Feather pushed off the wall and pushed me out of the tractor beam type thing Xana had me held in. As we landed on the floor, she had me accidentally pinned to the ground.

"You're no better than me. I was used. I used you. You use her, and make no mistake, you are using her. The only way to escape the cycle is to give yourself to oblivion." My eye twitched in response.

"She is not a pawn. She is my friend." Xana could do nothing but laugh.

"You really are deluded, aren't you? Nobody would have you as a friend. You are a monster, a weapon. That is what you were designed to be, and that is all you ever will be."

"Fuse with me..." Feather said weakly.

"What?" I asked.

"Do...do the thing-"

Before I could react, my throat was slit. Xana had stopped playing around and just gotten to the point. He wanted me dead, and he didn't beat around the bush anymore. He just did it in the quickest and most efficient way. He dropped the dramatics, he dropped everything. I remember that very clearly, the blade slicing through my form...and I have no idea what happened after that, but somehow...Feather must have saved me.

The next thing I knew, I was thinking in sync with Feather. We looked down at our arm...it was Feather's body, but my powers coursed through it, and our consciousness mingled. They were separate but also sort of...one and the same. It's quite difficult to explain fully to those who haven't experienced it. We worked as one.

 _There's a program in my head somewhere. Taelia-_

 _You're just telling me this now?!_

 _Heh, better late than never. Honestly I kinda forgot about it._

See, the intentions of what we wanted to communicate to each other traveled faster than the actual words, so we interrupted each others thoughts to each other. When she thought about that program, I got the entire memory in an instant, as if it had always been mine. Apparently, as part of Taelia's anti-Xana gadget craze, she had created an anti-Xana program. Instead of actually using it, however, she decided to imbed it in Feather's mind for whatever reason.

 _So basically, punch poison into that sonofabitch._

That was Feather's reaction to me figuring out what the program was and how to use it. It would destroy some of his code in short bursts upon contact and begin to unravel him from the point of contact. So, in essence, we would be "punch(ing) poison into that sonofabitch." All of this happened in an instant, and Xana was still nearby from the throat slitting. We clocked him in the stomach. Feather's already superhuman strength augmented by my spectre powers. He went flying like a ragdoll. However, he recovered midair and landed on the back of his chair. He now had what looked like a smoking crater in his stomach. He grabbed it, breathing heavily. He had emotion on his face that I had never seen before...pain...and anger...and fear.

"This code..." His face twisted into a grimace that looked unnatural. Demonic. "That...bitch."

"Hey, Xana, hit the hybrid! 100 points!" we said, mocking him. Now it was his turn to be stupid and reckless and blinded by pain and emotion and desperation. He ran up to us. We ducked down and punched him in the groin. Feather's idea. It didn't have a different affect than if we hit any other part of him, but Feather said it was the principle of the thing.

He wasn't completely consumed, though. He still had his reason. He figured out that the program worked by contact, so he got far away and started shooting electricity. Then he materialized so many Mantas that it actually slowed our movement down a little.

"Getting a little desperate, aren't we?" we said. We pulled out the gun Feather brought, and I loaded it with electrical bullets. We shot rapid-fire at the Mantas. A few of them went down, but there were still so many.

 _Behind._

I flung my fist behind me. It hit Xana's right shoulder, and his arm flew right off, dissolving into black smoke. He cried out in something like pain. He was trying the same tactic over again. Didn't he know better?

Lasers flew everywhere. We could not dodge them all. For every dozen or so we could take out, we were hit. How many of these things did he spawn? I knew the exact count at the time, and when I thought it, Feather thought it was overkill, and it was. What? The anti-theatrics weren't working, so he would ramp up on the theatrics? What sort of man was he?

Our eyes were able to shift through the Mantas and find black smoke. Xana was on a Manta now. He reminded me of William on his Manta. I could feel Feather start to make about a dozen jokes about William and I, based on the memories he brought up, but she decided now was not the time.

He materialized a sword, because of course he did. It may have been the tool he used to slit my throat. He slashed it in the air and an energy wave towards us. It met it's mark and created a burning gash in my chest.

 _Ow, what the hell?!_

He used that moment to pin us to the floor. We could still move, but there was an immense pressure pressing down on us. I could feel him crushing me. He leaned in real close to us.

"You are going to die."

"Not like this." We responded. We could feel a strength building that had not been there before. A strength that refused to let us die, that refused to be destroyed by a guy like this. "NOT TODAY!"

We lifted him off of us, held him with one hand, and punched him with the other...over...and over...and over! A grin crossed my face as black smoke exploded out of him, becoming less and less humanoid. He was just a giant crater. And then the only thing left was his head.

"Hey dad. Fuck you." I said, and grabbed his face, twisted, and ripped.

We breathed heavy as the last of the smoke dissipated. He was dead...for real this time. We grinned and high fived each other...but it just looked like an over enthusiastic clap. It was...finally...done. I was free.

It would be great if the story ended there, wouldn't it be? But no, I'm not dead yet, and the story continues.


	15. In Transition

"That was so...fucking...badass..." Feather said, collapsing backwards onto her couch in a happy, tired heap.

"I know, I was there." I replied, closing the door behind us, carefully. I looked around the cabin. Everything was the same. We hadn't actually been gone that long, despite how long it felt like we were gone. It had only been a day or so. "Your robot needs water." I said, before looking over at her and realizing she was fast asleep. I chuckled. Of course she was tired, after what we just went through. I would go feed the robot.

I slowly and quietly glided downstairs. It was quiet here, peaceful. This was...this was home. And I was free. It was like the world was giving a sigh of relief. Although, at the time, I didn't have the poetic ability to think up that simile. I went up against my father and I beat him. Feather and I beat him together. And now the world was a safer place. Of course, I couldn't have cared less about that part. I made him pay for messing with my life. That was all that really mattered to me. I didn't really need to bother with anything else.

The little sphere robot had scuttled over to the wall, where it was resting in collapsed sphere form. I scooped it up and flipped up a panel on it. Just as I had assumed, it was low on water. I carried it carefully upstairs, and to the kitchen. I flipped the lid of the robot's water tank and filled it with water from the faucet. The water fueling this robot didn't need to be any particular level of purity, so tap water would do. After I filled the tank, I put the small robot down on the floor. It immediately popped back up into a sphere, and then extended its legs and started to scuttle around the house. Once I made sure it was doing well, I sat down near Feather's head.

I would miss Kanky. I could probably create another, but it wouldn't be the same. My Kankrelat, you see, was my first companion. When I was small, back before Xana and I moved to the home Replika and I lived in Carthage, I was alone. Kanky was one of my training dummies. There must have been some sort of emergent quality in him. None of the other Kankrelats were as affectionate. Instead of shooting at me, like he was supposed to, Kanky rubbed up against my leg.

He was lucky. He caught me at a time in my life when I still had mercy and compassion in me. If he had come up to me a few months...or even a few weeks later, I would have destroyed him anyways. All the mercy and compassion had been trained out of me by that point. I craved a companion, and Xana would not, under any circumstances, allow me to socialize with the Lyoko warriors or anybody on Earth, for that matter. Kanky was like a little puppy. I played with him, I trained with him.

I would miss him dearly. I still do.

Feather looked like she was distressed. I put my hand on her head and she relaxed. She moved closer to me. I looked over at her...she was still asleep. Now that I look back at it, I realize that she may have had romantic inclinations towards me. I have no way of knowing for sure, now. I wish I had been more perceptive in the ways of personal relations. But, looking back, I have my reasons to suspect.

We sat there for a long while. She slept...I stared into space, thinking. I was free now. I was...what was I supposed to do, now? My life, for so long...had been revolved around Xana. In fact my entire life revolved around him. Pleasing him, avenging him, getting my revenge, breaking free. Did my life...have purpose, now? What was my purpose? What was my objective, now? The place in my mind where I held my main objective was completely blank. It bothered me on a fundamental level. I pondered for a while. I don't know how long it was...but Feather snapped me out of it.

"Let's just live." She said.

"What?" I asked, looking down at her. The statement was a little out of nowhere.

"You're wondering what to do next, right? Let's just live."

And so we set about to do that. The two of us just lived, there in the cabin in Oregon. We hunted forest creatures for food, we talked, we watched movies. Feather got more serious about her freelance car repair. She was the best in the northwest United States. We made her mysterious disappearances into the woods a part of her branding. I freelanced in creating and repairing technology. A few of the things I created actually made it onto the shelves. I cannot, for the life of me, remember what they were. We got very little money, and even less credit for our work. We didn't need much, though. We just needed a little cash and and a way to pass the time...A way to feel useful.

One day, we were out in the woods, hunting for deer, when Feather did something peculiar. She was just about to take down an elk, she had it in her sights. It was a beautiful specimen, too. When she suddenly slowed down, like someone had suddenly put her into slow motion. I watched her crumple to the ground. She started coughing. It scared the elk away. I walked towards her, about to ask why she was coughing. She had not gotten sick before.

Then she coughed up blood. Quite a bit of blood.

"Feather!" I picked her up, carrying her back to the cabin, and lay her out onto the couch. This was not good. Coughing up blood was a sign of internal bleeding. She had not been injured lately. She...had never gotten sick before. What could I do? She wasn't technically human...so I didn't know if a hospital could do anything-

Wait, wait, I needed to be calm. I could do a scan of her biology. Feather was very clearly in pain, although she wasn't coughing up blood now.

"Feather, I'm going to scan you." I said. She nodded weakly. I closed my eyes and waved my hand over her. What I saw...how could I have missed it before? A biology scan was not one of my default lenses when looking at the world. If I had scanned her sooner...Well, there's no use thinking about what could have happened. There is only what happened. What I saw.

She had tumors...everywhere.

"How bad is it, doc?" Feather asked, after a few moments of silence.

"You have cancer." I said.

"...Son of a bitch..."


	16. The Feather of a Phoenix

I wasn't going to take her to the hospital. Feather put in a lot of work to wipe herself off the map. Making her have a public medical record now would only make the time she had left unsavory.

A friend would not do that.

For a time, I attempted to treat her, myself, using knowledge in medical records. As soon as she started feeling sick to her stomach from radiation, she made me stop. It wasn't worth it, a life like that. And she told me a life like her's...wasn't worth the effort. Of course, she was worth the effort. However, I didn't want to make things worse for her, so I stopped the radiation treatment.

I continued to study her illness, though, to try and figure out what went wrong. Her body was riddled with tumors, her bones, her skin, her organs, her brain. She was in a tremendous amount of pain. I did all I could for her. I promise I did. But she was doomed from the start, same as Taelia, same as me. It seems to run in the family, if you could call us that.

Her illness was ultimately due to the genetic experimentation performed on her at the hands of Project Carthage.

It's a little ironic. Feather had so many self destructive tendencies, but someone else's actions were what killed her. You would think it would have been the drinking or drugs or dangerous stunts. Irony had a large presence in my world. Perhaps it was karma for deeds I would have done, if you believe in that sort of thing.

I could have gotten angry and taken revenge on Project Carthage. Honestly, looking back, I'm a little surprised that I didn't go after them. I didn't really have it in me to go on another revenge warpath. Besides, I had Feather to take care of.

She declined very quickly from that first fall. Feather, a powerful warrior, disintigrated before my eyes. Her legs ceased to support her, her vision went. She had to watch herself deteriorate...She expressed to me on more than one occasion that she would rather die now than continue. I was selfish. I couldn't kill her. So, we both saw it through to the conclusion. And don't be deceived, it was a conclusion. She did not miraculously recover. Feather died during that Spring, with very little of herself intact.

You might think someone like her deserved to die with a little more...honor, than that. Perhaps her death would have been better suited in a big battle. She would go down in a blaze of glory. It wasn't fair. Then again, when is death fair? When is the world fair? It isn't. We deal with what we're given. We shift. We change. We adapt.

I probably could have done better to adapt during this time. I'll get to that in a moment.

I don't have a lot of specific details in this chapter...simply because I don't clearly remember many of our interactions during that time. Or maybe I simply don't want to remember. It was quite painful for the both of us. It got to a point where I had to do everything for her. She was humiliated, but at least it was only the two of us. One thing I remember very clearly is that she requested a viking funeral. She thought it would be, and I quote "metal as fuck."

So, when the time came, I built a small raft, put Feather's body on it and brought it to a nearby lake. I set it on the water, set it on fire, and kicked it out onto the water. I stood on the shore of the lake for a long time and watched her burn, and eventually sink. If I had the ability to think more poetically, I might have thought of some sort of metaphor about the Feather of a phoenix burning and then reborn as...something. I still don't quite have it worked out. And just like that, she was gone.

There were no tears shed for her. I can't even say I felt sad. Instead, I was filled with a profound emptiness. There was no reason for me to be around anymore. My father was gone, Feather was gone, Taelia was gone, The Lyoko Warriors would want nothing to do with me, and the feeling was mutual. There was nothing here for me anymore. So, I decided to get away from this world, and go where I actually belonged. I went back onto the network.

I floated in the digital sea for a long time. The experience is a little hard to explain in words, but I will make the attempt.

Have you ever let your limbs dangle in a still body for a long time, and you cease to be able to feel where your body ends and the water begins? It was like that, but with my whole body and mind. I was nothing. I was aware of nothing. Data flowed through me, but I did not register any of it. I lost all sense of time, all sense of space, all sense of identity...Everything became a single, condensed blur. The pulse of the network became my pulse. I rid myself of myself. I was free of the world, and even from my own thoughts.

Strangely enough, I have a contradicting memory, or a feeling of a memory. I floated for a long time, uninterrupted. Without Feather, there just wasn't anything left in this world for me. And yet, I was burdened with the sins of those I left behind, and my own, of course. During my time with Feather, I realized that my actions were wrong. I didn't realize the scale of it, and I don't think I ever will, but I got the idea that we all did some bad things. And when you do something bad, you are supposed to make up for it. As I was the only one left alive, I ad to make up for their sins, too.

In order to do that...I created a website. It was a simple prompt. "Type your wish." It became something of an urban legend. I only granted wishes I deemed worthy to grant. A lot of people wanted money or power. The only instance I remember...however vaguely...was a young girl. She wished to get out of her home, because her single mother was physically and emotionally abusive. I "haunted" the mother, and hurt her and landed her in jail. I made sure the girl was ok, too, before going back to floating.

If that did, in fact, happen, then there must have been other instances where I granted other people's wishes. I have no idea when it would have happened. As I said, I only have a vague feeling this happened. And then I went back to the digital sea, back into vast nothingness...until a certain message interrupted me.

* * *

I waited a day to publish this, just in case I could remember more, and I did remember something. Just a little...Before Feather died, she was in her bed, I suppose I was more withdrawn than usual because she looked up at me and told me this.

"Hey, dummy, you better not just mope around. Get out there, make some friends, and see the world. And when we meet again, tell me about them."

Obviously I didn't do a great job with that, since all my time floating in the digital sea was essentially moping. I'm making up for it now, though. I hope the two of us have the chance to meet again, because now, I have some friends to introduce, and some stories to tell.


	17. The End

Like I said, I was interrupted from my floating trough the digital sea by a certain message. Now, not just any message would have pulled me out of my stupor. It was a confidential email announcing the death of the final remaining member of Project Carthage. All records of the project were to be burned, and his funeral was to be held the next day.

When I saw this information, my consciousness flickered back to life. It was like when you've tuned out the noise of a crowd, but suddenly you hear your name, and you immediately pay attention. How do you pick that up specifically, when everything else passes you by? It's called the cocktail party effect. I'm not entirely sure why it happens., and I don't feel like doing the research right now.

I didn't really care about the dead man, his name in Project Carthage was Agent Alpha. I think he comes up in some of Taelia's backstory. However, his death signaled the end of Project Carthage. Without Project Carthage, Taelia and Franz would not have ended up together, wouldn't have created Xana. I would have never been created. To me it was...the end of an era. I thought to myself...I might as well be there to see this chapter close. After that, I could fade into obscurity forever. I had no purpose left in me, after all. No drive.

For the first time in a very long time, I emerged from the network. I have no memory of where I emerged or how I got to the funeral, so I'll just skip to that. I wore a black dress and faded the highlights out of my hair beforehand. The funeral was small, but not so small that I could not blend into the background. Nobody tried to talk to me. They must have seen my solemn silence as a form of mourning, and thought it better to leave me be.

I had never been to a funeral before. Well, besides Feather's. I had killed people, but never really thought about the after effects of death. Human lives are tied together in a way I understood, but only from an intellectual and analytical perspective. I knew cause and effect of their actions, but couldn't understand the implications. All sorts of people from different walks of life gathered here to cry over a corpse, and talk about the life it once contained. A single person can have a profound effect on history, they touch the lives of many. It is the cruel irony of the universe that nobody may live to see just how profound an effect they had.

I killed a lot of people. Sure, the Code: Revenge version of myself did a lot worse, but I still killed a lot of people...during my training, as a child. The goal was to hone my skills and desensitize me. It worked. I felt nothing when I killed somebody, except, perhaps, a small thrill, and a feeling of satisfaction. I don't know how many died by my hands then, but it had to be at least 50. Then there was the time I attacked a major office building and the surrounding area. Thousands of people must have died then. Each of those people had a funeral like this one. Just how many people did I affect? Too many, and there's not much I can do to make up for it.

The funeral wasn't too long, there was a lot of crying and praying...saying words about the deceased, and burying him. I...wasn't paying much attention to that, however. Something else...or rather...someone else stood across from me, also observing the funeral from the periphery.

Taelia.

A ghost of the past. I noticed her before she noticed me. It shouldn't have been possible. I killed her with my own two hands, and yet, there she was. I must not have finished the job. I left her for dead, drained her energy. It was true I never found the body the morning after our fight, but I always assumed that was because the Lyoko Warriors picked her up and buried her somewhere. No, she got up and walked away herself.

Now, you may be wondering where Taelia is in Code: Revenge. The answer is I have no idea. The plan was always to have her die and stay dead. I was just as surprised as you are that she was there. The girl was stubborn, she clung to life when everyone else would have given up. Even when she didn't want to survive anymore, her body kept on going. And yes, she was still 13. What a horrible twist of fate.

She was in a dark gray hoodie and jeans. I would have thought she would dress for the occasion, but it seemed she was far past caring at that point. Her hair was a twisted mess of pink and black. It was surprising that nobody kicked her out for looking like, well, a monster. Perhaps it was just that nobody dared to try interacting with her at all. Her eyes were wide and lifeless, staring limply at the casket being slowly lowered into the ground. There went the end of Project Carthage, and we two remnants here to bare witness to it.

And then she saw me. Our eyes locked, and it seemed like electricity ran through her eyes. Every muscle in her body tensed, and she reached inside her pocket. She was looking to pull a gun on me. Shoot first, ask questions later. Always the impulsive one. That didn't change. If you looked at her actions through the lens of Feather's influence, though, a lot of Taelia's tendencies started to make sense. They were roommates and drinking buddies for a number of years, after all. I wonder what her time with Feather was like. I'm sure they raised some hell together. They could probably also bond over Project Carthage being run by a bunch of assholes.

I put my hand up, in a gesture to make her stop, then looked over at the other people. She got the message and relaxed, taking her hand out of her pocket once more. There were witnesses right now. Whatever business we had to settle, could be settled after the funeral was over. So we watched each other and waited...two beings separate from the world. Two sides of the same coin. It really was like looking into the face of what could have been.

Eventually, everyone left. Their cars took them off to civilization, a civilization that still existed simply because I succeeded in reviving my father. I hate and...fear him, still. My greatest fear is that my father will find me, even here. I am reminded by friends that there is no way he could, but why not? I made it here...and I was never supposed to be able to exist beyond my coding. However, even if he did make it here...if he came by the same method, then he would not have his powers, only his consciousness. We would be on a more or less even playing field. There are things I can do to make him stay away for good without getting myself arrested.

Just as soon as everyone was gone, there was a gun aimed at me. There was no doubt it was an EMP gun. She wasn't so far gone that she would shoot normal bullets into me for no reason. Of course she still had an EMP gun. She must have taken the time to make a new one, actually, considering I destroyed the first one. Paranoia is a powerful thing, indeed. Or maybe it was left over from fighting Xana when I was out of the picture...or maybe...well...any number of things could have occurred. I have no way of knowing.

Her aim was shaky. Her face was a twisted concoction of emotion I couldn't identify or understand. But...there was something about her. I felt...I felt genuine pity and sympathy. It is the strongest memory of emotion I have. She was like a child, a wild animal. Here was a human...completely and utterly destroyed by the world. And she was me.

And in that moment, I understood. It was time.

I walked slowly towards her. Her aim only got shakier, but she did not shoot. As I thought, she no longer had it in her. I kept walking forward until I was standing right in front of her. Then I put my hand on her shoulder and slowly eased her shooting arm down to her side. She was hesitant, but she let it happen. She was shaking, even though it was spring or summer. It seemed as though she couldn't speak, but it was ok, she didn't need to. Once her hand was at her side and as loose as it was going to get, I gently pulled off her hoodie, exposing her head to the open air. She inhaled sharply, but made no move to retaliate.

"We will go together." I said, softly. Taelia...Morgan, Morgan Xenia Stones, there was no point to the facade, anymore. Morgan nodded, and glanced towards the forest. I understood, and nodded in turn. I took her hand in mine, and lead her towards the forest on the cemetery's edge.

I have no idea where we were, or what day it was, or even how long we took. It didn't much matter now, did it? We were timeless, we were spaceless...we were our own funeral procession, and there was no hesitation.

Then, when we were somewhere, deep in the forest, Morgan stopped. I stopped and looked back. She refused to move anymore. I saw. This was the place, then.

She lifted her gun and put it to my left temple. I, in turn, generated a lethal amount of electricity in my right hand and put it to her temple. There were no famous last words, no last big hurrah. This world was done with us, and we were done with the world. That's all. There was nothing left for us anymore, nothing for us to fight for, nothing for us to fight over. All Project Carthage members were dead, and the records burned. The only thing left to do was tie up loose ends. We would be gone, and the world could finally move on.

We looked into each other's eyes. Maybe, one day, I will possess the artistic talent to accurately recreate what I saw. Hazel eyes, flecks of brown and green...humanity at it's rawest. I could see the person she had been, and the person she was molded into, and all the pain she had endured on the way. I added to that pain...but now I would take it away, and she would do the same for me.

"We'll go on three." I said, and Morgan nodded in response, her hand steady, now.

There was no need to do a big countdown, no need to hesitate. Besides, Morgan had people waiting for her. There was Feather...Waldo, and Anthea...her blood relatives, probably...and Aelita would follow eventually. As for me, a program could not have a soul, so I thought. Every theory about consciousness after death involves a soul, a vessel for that consciousness. That was something an endless string of 1s and 0s couldn't possibly have. But that was ok.

"One...two...three."

And that was it.

* * *

Thank you for bearing with me here. I think it was a useful experience for me to write out my life, and I'm sure you got something out of it too, or you wouldn't have made it this far.

It was pointed out to me today...that there is a large logical contradiction. Xana was a lot of things, but not stupid. He is not a stupid person. Treating me outwardly with less than respect...would be like him just asking me to betray him, especially since that is more or less the EXACT reason he betrayed Franz Hopper. Also I was his greatest creation, taking a great amount of effort and resources...I agree he would not treat me as lesser like that...I wrote from memory...but it occurs to me my memory may still be flawed. After all, there was that contradiction about whether I left the Digital Sea at all before the funeral. There could be others. I may never know what really happened.

And...well...that's it. That's the story. I died. My consciousness continued from there. I floated in a dark void for a long time, and then I woke up in this body, able to clamp down on the beginnings of a breakdown. I've been doing similar things ever since. Through Affa's eyes, I learned to see beauty and greater empathy. I was able to taste and smell and feel for the first time. My favorite taste is chocolate chip cookies. I've been able to experience a proper family, and make some friends.

I'm alive and well. The story could go on, but it gets kind of boring after that...for now, at least. Besides, I don't really think I'm the main character here, anymore. We are going to do some incredible things, she and I...and perhaps I can begin to make up for the sins of the past. If any of this story sounds familiar to you, and you think you may have been there too...contact me. I would love to meet you.

Oh, and, uh...Feather. If you're out there...if this reaches you, somehow...I have some stories to tell you, my friend. So let's meet up soon. Alright?


	18. On Further Thought

I've been doing some thinking. I may have been wrong.

Life's been going more or less well for us. Affa's finishing up her junior year of a BFA in acting. I help where I can. Recently, we've been watching a let's play of Pheonix Wright: Spirit of Justice. In it, you are able to see sensory input of the final moments before someone's death. Those inputs are then interpreted by the princess of the land. That interpretation is taken as the absolute truth. Of course, when it is scrutinized by a lawyer, and put up against contradicting evidence, it is proven that the original interpretation was false.

I believe I may have fallen into the trap of making this story the same.

At the end of this story, many months ago, I said a friend had pointed out contradictions. That logically, Xana would not have treated me so badly, would not have done things to drive me away, especially since he spent so much time and effort to create me. I was, without exaggeration, his greatest creation: the culmination of all of his efforts. However, I could not reconcile that with my own memories. The sensory input remains unchanged, all that I remember remains unchanged. Unless you want to call the validity of my memory into question, in which case, all of this is pointless. However, I may have had the wrong perspective. I processed sensory input through my own bias, my own perspective. Here I offer a brief summary of a different interpretation of events.

Let us make the assumption that my father did actually love me, value me. I brought him back, and then he told me to live at Kadic and not interfere. At the time, I took that as an insult to my abilities. However, in the past, I expressed interest in exactly that. When I was a little kid, before all my training, I was just a curious kid. I didn't want to fight the Lyoko Warriors. I wanted to befriend them. I wanted to learn about them, and Earth. I wanted to go to Earth and learn. I forgot about that, but what if Xana didn't.

He needed me to be able to fight, to be able to be his savior. Not just a backup, but a savior. And he wanted me to be his Taelia. I was insulted by that too, I'm not sure why. If we look at the parallels, Franz cared immensely for Taelia, to the point that she did so much for him. She was part of the family too, somewhere between his kid and his equal. And when Xana couldn't make that happen, he still made me his daughter. And remembered that as a child I had wanted to live on Earth and learn and make friends. So, once I had saved him...once he could take things from there... he let me have the childhood I wanted, school life at Kadic.

As for his meeting Feather and wanting her dead because she wouldn't...work for him? I haven't really thought what that could have been about... although, there doesn't have to be justification for things about Feather to make a case for him caring about me.

Only I could have handled that, and so I was sent from the life I was living to her. Or maybe I was always meant to be friends with her. Maybe he saw that I was different because of the training he put me through, and so set me up with the type of person I could connect to in the only way I knew how to connect. Sparring. So I could do what I had wanted to even as the type of person I was then.

As for him taking manual control and that whole episode where I tried to kill him the first time. I think Xana goes a little...wonky, when he's betrayed by someone close. I mean, look at what happened with Taelia. When he thought she had betrayed him, he nearly killed her, Aelita, and Franz. And he did genuinely care about Taelia. I'm the proof. Also, I have no memory from that time. I blacked out from the time he said "Fine. Then be a puppet." to the moment I was back with Feather.

I cannot help but think of the possible parallels to William. He did not have memory either, but he was not being used as a puppet. He had memory changed, and he was treated well. I loved him, and he loved me. In retrospect doing that to him was highly questionable, which is mentioned in Code Revenge. What I am trying to say is... it may not have been as malevolent as I originally thought.

So... the villain in my story may have merely been a man trying to love his daughter, and not exactly knowing how.

If this is the real truth, if these were your intentions, dad, then I'm sorry. I was wrong, and I hope you can forgive me.


End file.
